ArtVerve A SOUTH LONDON WOMEN ARTISTS MAGAZINE
March 2015 Edition 3 The Beginnings of that Freedome Parliament Hall, Westminster Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament
Paula Stevens-Hoare ‘The Beginnings of that Freedome’ Parliament in the Making Artist & Curator Anne Krinsky From Absorb to Zoom Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths Artist Marlene Dumas at Tate Modern and Frith Street Gallery, review by Moira Jarvis What is Urban? at Brixton East , Liz Charsley-Jory review The curators discuss Death and Transition at Gabriel Fine Art Gallery show in April The Rye Poets and Beata Kozlowska performing at a special event in April at The Crypt St John’s Church Waterloo, part of the SLWA Gabriel Fine Art show, Death and Transition Finders Keepers Losers Weepers SLWA Art School and Educational Workshops review SLWA Noticeboard
Discussions on Contemporary Female Art
Welcome to Edition 3 of ArtVerve If you are not already familiar with the art of Paula Stevens-Hoare, now's your chance! Paula’s work can be seen in the SLWA Publication, I'm Inside Ring The Bell, she was also one of the 17 artists who collaborated on Hidden Narratives Dangerous Erasions, the live drawing project for the Deptford X 2014 Festival at The Albany Theatre, which was recently exhibited at Middlesex University. Her current commissioned work is part of a banner exhibition at Parliament Hall, Westminster. Read all about it here. We also have interesting articles on the work and events of SLWA artists and group shows that are coming up over the next few months, featuring Anne Krinsky's SLWA member tour of From Absorb to Zoom at the Women's Art Library, please make your FREE booking, details are in the article. There are lots of activities during International Women's Day, if you are not involved in any, the WOW Festival at the Southbank will certainly keep you busy. Dates for your diary: there is an URBAN Drawing day on Sunday 8 March 2-5pm at Brixton East all SLWA members welcome. On Saturday 25 April at The Crypt, St John’s Church come and listen to the Rye Poets and watch Beata Kozlowska’s performative drawing at a special event in association with Gabriel Fine Art and Southbank Mosaics. There will be live music by the duo Sarah Lloyd and Ian Kennedy and we will be holding a Death Cafe with tea and cakes. Happy reading, and don't forget to put the SLWA AGM date in your diary Wednesday 8 July 2015 at Brixton East.
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PAULA STEVENS-HOARE THE BEGINNINGS OF THAT FREEDOME exhibition Westminster Hall 20 January to November 2015
SLWA artist Paula Stevens-Hoare is one of nine commissioned artists selected from across the UK to contribute to a banner exhibition called The Beginnings of that Freedome which is currently on display at Westminster Hall, Parliament. The display of 18 banners is a contemporary interpretation to complement the historical subjects since the 1215 Magna Carta up to the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act. Paula was commissioned to design two banners the 1832 Great Reform Act and the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. Picked from hundreds of artists nationally, Paula’s work explores gender stereotyping, oppression and sexism. She works in a range of media and was inspired to create the image of Earl Grey, the Prime Minster of the Whig Government who passed the Reform Act, with Earl Grey tea, which was named after him. She says of the work ‘First, I sprinkled tea leaves on to paper to make a simple image based on the painting of Earl Grey by Thomas Lawrence, but I knew it would disappear if the paper was moved. Next, I experimented with brewing some strong tea to paint with. I was pleased with the effects and decided that this would add an extra narrative layer to the banner. At the British Library, I tracked down a map from the mid-19th century of the British Isles showing the newly formed constituencies’. 3|
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The Beginnings of that Freedome is an exhibition of 18 banners that depicts the key landmarks in British Constitutional history to commemorate two anniversaries: 750 years since the Simon de Montfort’s Parliament and the sealing of Magna Carta 800 years ago.
1832 Great Reform Act
1967 Sexual Offences Act
For the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, Paula designed a banner that ‘acknowledged the struggle, but celebrated the gains. Most of the people connected with the first significant changes in law were men … Oscar Wilde, HG Wells, John Wolfenden and Leo Abse, little is known about the three women who abseiled onto the floor of the House of Lords in protest against Section 28; or April Ashley, one of the first people to undergo gender reassignment surgery in the ‘60s, who has campaigned for the rights of transsexuals and was awarded an MBE in 2012’. The banners make an impressive statement in the great Westminster Hall and show us how history has been shaped and our constitution has been developed by ordinary people. The exhibition reminds us of our past and history, inspired by stories of a coming together of minds to uphold the liberties which have been made possible. Written by Melissa Budasz 4|
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Parliament has a programme of events over the next few months please go to www.parliament.uk/2015 for further information.
Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament 5|
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ANNE KRINSKY FROM ABSORB TO ZOOM
An Alphabet of Actions in the Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths Special SLWA artist-led tour Saturday 14 March 2015, 2.30pm
Saturday 14 March 2015 2.30pm Meet: Special Collections Reading Room, Rutherford Building Goldsmiths University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW http://www.gold.ac.uk/make/events/ Please join us for an artist and curator-led talk and tour of Anne Krinsky: From Absorb to Zoom / An Alphabet of Actions in the Women’s Art Library, a collaborative digital print installation with content derived from materials in the Women’s Art Library. The exhibition is on view in two locations on the Goldsmiths’ campus 2-30 March 2015, with a private view on Saturday 7 March from 2 to 4pm. Anne Krinsky will talk to us about her research in the archive and creating the project. Althea Greenan, Curator of the Women’s Art Library/MAKE will speak about the history of the Women’s Art Library. Greenan has written extensively on women in the arts and has facilitated projects and installations that centre on the collection. The Women’s Art Library started in the late 1970s as an artist-led initiative to enhance public knowledge of the practice, impact and achievement of women in the visual art and houses unique documentation of women artists’ works. Krinsky’s installation takes inspiration from slides, artists’ books, magazines, monographs and posters in the collection. 6|
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SLWA member Anne Krinsky is a painter and printmaker who creates site-specific installations in response to archived collections. She has exhibited previous projects with archives in library, museum and university settings in the US. This is her first installation with a UK archive and is funded by Arts Council England, the Thames Barrier Print Studio and a successful Kickstarter campaign that generated donations from around the world. In tandem with the installation, Krinsky has invited selected artists with documentation in the Women’s Art Library to send her images of recent work to post on The Virtual Archive on the project blog: http://annekrinskyfromabsorbtozoom.blogspot.co.uk Sited In two Goldsmiths locations: Special Collections Reading Room, Rutherford Building 2-30 March 2015 Open Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm / Wed until 7pm The Kingsway Corridor, Richard Hoggart Builiding Open 8am - 9pm daily Directions to Special Collections Reading Room, Rutherford Information Services Building (the library) At the Security Desk, say that you are attending an event in the Special Collections Reading Room. After passing through the gates, walk straight back to Special Collections. We will put up signs as well.
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MARLENE DUMAS TATE MODERN 5 February to 10 May 2015 & FRITH STREET GALLERY 16 January to 17 April 2015 “I like my medium slow and my gestures fast” Marlene Dumas 2015
© Marlene Dumas
There are two exhibitions of Marlene Dumas’ work in London at the moment. The first is Tate Modern’s large-scale survey of her work and is the most significant exhibition of her work ever to be held in Europe. Born in South Africa in 1953, her work explores themes of sexuality, love, death and shame, and while borrowing from popular culture, film, art history and current affairs, she also draws on her extensive archive of images collected over the years, as well as photographs she has taken. “Second-hand images,” she has said, “can create first hand emotions”. Growing up in South Africa, Dumas saw few examples of original artworks but relied instead on reproductions in books and magazines. Images held a particular power in South Africa. When Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in 1964, all images of him were banned. Television was not introduced to the country until 1976, the year that Dumas left for Amsterdam. In the painting The Image as Burden 1993 (room 6), Dumas transforms a film still from Camille (1936) showing the dying heroine carried by her lover to symbolise Dumas’s own relationship with her source material: the challenge of working with an image that
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becomes the artwork. Throughout the exhibition Dumas deals with this problem in a painterly and provocative way, her use of oil paint sumptuous, translucent and fluent. “There is the image (source photography) you start with and the image (the painted image) you end up with, and they are not the same. I wanted to give more attention to what the painting does to the image, not only to what the image does to the painting.” Marlene Dumas 2015 In Room 1, the series of ink and graphite ‘portrait heads’, called Rejects 1994-2014 are pinned directly to the wall and are cropped images that Dumas has discarded from another work. Dealing with the ambiguities and paradoxes of both life and painting, this work references both the reject stores in South Africa and also the process of selection and rejection in making art and perhaps, in a darker way, how we are selected or rejected in daily life. Evil is Banal 1984 © Marlene Dumas
The meaning of Dumas’s work is often ambiguous which seems to be the quality that draws us in. In room 9, The Painter 1994 was inspired by photos of her daughter coming in from the garden with hands covered with paint. The child stares out at us with a fierce gaze and Dumas says that the painting has become “closer to the world of ghosts and angels….” It’s certainly a very haunting image with the seductive use of paint at odds with the nightmarish quality of the red hands; threatening yet vulnerable. The relationship between colonialism, the private and public self and the female body in politics is explicitly played out in The Widow 2013, room 14. For this work Dumas returned to a photograph that had long fascinated her of Pauline Lumumba walking bare-breasted through the streets of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) in the act of mourning. In 1961 her husband Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was assassinated by Katangan authorities with the support of the Belgian and American governments. Dumas painted the photograph twice, once depicting a broader scene with a greater sense of depth on a small canvas, the other focusing on the figure of Pauline to create a cinematic close-up that draws attention to “what the painting does to the image”. Magdalena 1 1996 © Marlene Dumas
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Mamma Roma, 2012 Š Marlene Dumas
The second exhibition, small and exquisite, is of rarely seen work at Frith Street Gallery, made in response to drawings by Juan Munoz. The drawings by Juan Munoz concern the mouth. The mouth is significant in much of his work, primarily for its role in the act of communication. Sound, or rather the lack of it, has been a continual feature in his work. Dumas has created a number of new drawings in response to these historical pieces. They are not portraits in the traditional sense but communicate an idea, a state of mind, an emotion, rather than specific information about a particular person. Allowing for few revisions, she uses watercolour like ink and wash on roughly torn hand-made paper. Warm, witty and erotic, the drawings focus on the mouth and the physicality of the kiss. They are beautifully hung in this intimate space.
Written by Moira Jarvis with reference to Tate Modern publications www.tate.org.uk
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WHAT IS URBAN? BRIXTON EAST 100 BARRINGTON ROAD
26 February to 11 March 2015, open daily 11am-5pm URBAN Drawing Day – Sunday 8 March 2-5pm
What Is Urban? was conceived after a visit to Brixton East, a multi-use hire space enclosed in a tight triangle bordered by two streets and a railway line. The location is the essence of urban dwelling, and as so many of South London Women Artists live nearby, I wondered what urban might mean to them. It turns out that several of us share an interest in the patterns and traces made by pockets of wilderness, our momentary escapes from human traffic and noise. Patterns form a common thread in the work exhibited, from shadows, power lines, maps, building grids, textures and ornamental details. Urban textures have been explored, in paint, photographic collage, embroidery and glass fibre. One or two narratives emerged, observed and imagined. A sound piece transports the listener to an urban allotment. Paving slabs containing traces of fallen leaves are grouped on the floor. Artists often find themselves contributing to urban regeneration. In this instance, the stylish regeneration of an old industrial building provided the impetus for a harmonious body of work.
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Such is the ambience of the space, admired by visitors at the private view, we are holding an Urban Drawing Day, 2-5pm, on Sunday, 8 March, to celebrate International Women’s Day. Boards and drawing materials will be supplied, along with coffee and tea.
Private View, Thursday 26 February, 2015
All ages and abilities are invited to join us in making drawings that take inspiration from the local views and internal textures and details of Brixton East Gallery, as well as the art on display. Exhibiting artists will be on hand to assist if required. Hubble 1, 2, 3, Chantal Gillingham
Key date for your diary: URBAN drawing day Sunday 8 March 2015 2 – 5pm ALL WELCOME Urban Spaces, Yoke Matz
Written by Liz Charsley-Jory 12 |
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DEATH AND TRANSITION GABRIEL FINE ART Waterloo 17 April to 1 May 2015
Curators Ilinca Cantacuzino, Melissa Budasz & Yolanta Gawlik talk about their collective and personal interpretation
Death is one of the few experiences common to all people and all societies. But how different people have conceived of and have different conceptions of death has shaped behaviours and practices over time and across cultures. Through art, people have expressed attitudes towards death that can be universal, while in others it is more personal and culturally specific. The idea for Death and Transition emerged out of a conversation when we reflected on how the focus of life changes when our parents are getting old and vulnerable, or when people close to us go through a challenging illness. Several of us were in this situation and we thought it would be a good idea to address the concept of death with an art exhibition. The Transition element in death is very important: Death is not final; we are on the journey in which death is just another station. In the end we are alone. We might have different beliefs and cultural backgrounds, but death unites us all, makes us all equal. SLWA artists were invited to take their own approach in expressing the concept of death on a very personal and intimate level or in a more abstract, universal expression. Death is as individual as it is universal and it is fascinating to see what this means to different artists. A wide range of objects, images and structures will form part of this exhibition that negotiates the processes of aging and dying, grieving, and commemorating or in a more abstract, universal sense. Gabriel Fine Art is close to Lambeth North and Waterloo tube stations, on the back of St Thomas' Hospital, close to Westminster Bridge and next to an old burial ground. It is also in close proximity to Make Space Studios, which are placed on the site of the old train station used in 1848 for transporting the bodies of Cholera epidemic - all those connections with death are present there. 13 |
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Here are the curators’ thoughts and inspiration for this show: Ilinca Cantacuzino - using an old photograph of my parents when they were young, I am setting photography up against drawing as a discourse on these two ideas: seeing how the former is death, while the other is transition. As Roland Barthes says in Camera Lucida ‘Whether or not the subject (of the photograph) is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe’. Every photograph is a representation of what has been. So although the photograph is full of life, and youth, its ‘punctum’, ‘no longer of form, but of intensity, is Time …' Melissa Budasz - my approach to the theme of death is universal and centred on re-birth, regeneration and discovery. In SLWA’s Book Club, we focused books around the theme of death to coincide with the show and I read Eve Ensler’s In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection. As Ensler was confronted with the possibility of death we experience connections to both her personal denial and our collective denial of global warming, the destruction of species and the use of rape as a weapon of war. I think of William Blake as I draw and his insistence on the universality of creativity. I have always understood that. Yolanta Gawlik - personally what has emerged (and this is a surprise to me) is a triptych of 3 very small mixed media pictures, titled ‘The Geographer’. The Geographer in question is my father who died in 1997. I inherited many old maps from my father’s collection. In the ‘The Geographer’ triptych I have used the fragments of an old German war time map of the area we come from, where the names of Polish villages are accompanied by German names. My work is still in progress. With it I hope to express that Death did not separate us.
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POETRY PERFORMANCE MUSIC & DEATH CAFE DEATH AND TRANSITION SPECIAL EVENT
THE CRYPT, ST JOHN’S CHURCH Saturday 25 April 2015 2-4pm
Creating a dramatic, uplifting, poetical, (sometimes satirical) event from the theme of death might seem morbid and morose, but we are sure this event will provoke thought and insight as well as laughter and reflection. Southbank Mosaics are SLWA’s host, in collaboration with Gabriel Fine Art. Welcome to William Blake’s Lambeth … and death is our theme.
The Rye Poets – Joan Byrne, Helen Adie and Pia Goddard Without death there would be no art: that’s Helen’s view. It wasn’t mortality, though, that brought the Rye Poets together but a love of clothes. Pia and Joan met Helen at Grace and Favour, a much-missed shop on Northcross Road, on a June day six years ago. The three were there to rifle through the second-hand clothes and to offer unsolicited sartorial advice. This was exciting enough, but then talk turned to writing and a writers’ triangle was conceived. The three meet to critique each other’s work and to define themes they wish to write about. Recently, they’ve been inspired by colours and have produced limited editions of a collection of the white poems, followed by the blue poems and this year they will publish the red poems. The books are illustrated with a monoprint, drypoint or photograph from each of them. Pia is both designer and bookmaker. The Rye Poets have performed at various venues including galleries, pubs and at art festivals. 15 |
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Pia Goddard worked in publishing and as a photojournalist, trained as a sculptor, and has an MA in Fine Art and Critical Theory. She has run her own gallery and is a fine art photographer who exhibits regularly. Her writing includes children’s and adults’ poetry as well as short stories. Pia is inspired by coincidence, death, love and ghosts. Helen Adie has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway College. She worked as an actress, and has been teaching Drama/English at JAGS in Dulwich. A published poet, she won the Havant Poetry Prize in 2010. Helen is an artist/printmaker and enjoys the collaborative process between different art forms, as well as drawing on her background in performance. Joan Byrne has worked in PR and publishing. Joan is a documentary photographer with a particular focus on Peckham. She has published Feckham Peckham and also Grave Art, a snapshot of south London cemeteries. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Joan writes short fiction and poetry. She likes the precision of words; her view of life is at a slant.
Beata Kozlowska - Ariadne Saw
Beata Kozlowska, Preliminary for the ‘Ariadne saw’, work in progress, mixed media, Studio Voltaire, 2015
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SLWA artist Beata Kozlowska’s studio is at the prestigious Studio Voltaire and she has been an active member for many years. She is working on a new performative drawing for this event, referencing the Myth of Ariadne. She says of her work ‘Death and Transition is an opportunity to experiment with a performative drawing, a recently explored intuitive process that uses gel pen on paper. It is based on the Ariadne's Thread metaphor and refers to the idea of abandoning the existing, known, limited structure in order to transition towards the New. Gestural drawing is the weaving technique that creates these Ariadne's threads, and the action involved in drawing is not only a way of marking, or rather quasi-mapping the known space, but also a means to transcend it. The SLWA art-trail residency at Conway Hall actually prompted me to transcend the limits of my current practice: from abstract drawing, installation and photography, to the time based medium performance and ultimately video (as a documentation). The installation I created for Conway Hall, called Con-tain map- Ariadne saw was inspired by the mythical Ariadne, who supplied her beloved Theseus with a string as an aid to find the way back from the Labyrinth, where the dreadful Minotaur existed. I was using red string and black, transparent fabric and also elements of artificial light, which created the shadows in coexistence with drawing on wallpaper, laid along the staircase within the site chosen for the work. It has been an exhilarating and spontaneous process of adjusting to the specificity of the interiors. The string is the possibility to go beyond the existing frame of mind or mental image – which, through the act of intuitive drawing in space, (here string is also a metaphor for a drawn line) can provide the border for transition/transformation and restructuring. The architectural elements like folded paper suspended on strings, randomly spread across the site, are corresponding with the idea of never-ceasing and unstable manner of forming the new Syntax, the syntax of the language we are bounded by, unable to question. The performative piece for Death and Transition will also be inspired by William Blake’s interpretation of Ariadne in Dante’s Inferno, an ideological structure of transcendence from the materialistic to the spiritual, therefore, abstract dimension’.
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Music by Sarah Lloyd and Ian Kennedy
Sarah Lloyd and Ian Kennedy are local (SE London) musicians who sing traditional folk songs in unaccompanied harmony and with instrumental accompaniment. They regularly take part in the Goose is Out singaround and perform floor spots at London folk clubs. In the last year they have supported Thomas McCarthy and the Copper Family, performed as a vocal and instrumental duo at Cecil Sharp House for the EFDSS Yan Tan Tethera textiles and song project and at the Solstice Shorts Festival at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. As members of Gentlefolk, with song writer Nigel of Bermondsey, Sarah and Ian have performed in a variety of venues, including graveyards, woodland, ships and haunted houses as well as headlining at traditional folk clubs. They are founder members of the Dulwich Folk Choir and the South East London Folk Orchestra.
Death CafĂŠ in the Crypt At a Death Cafe people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. Our objective is 'to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives'. A Death Cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session.
Death Cafes are always offered: - On a not for profit basis - In an accessible, respectful and confidential space - With no intention of leading people to any conclusion, product or course of action - Alongside refreshing drinks and nourishing food – and cake! See more at: http://deathcafe.com/what/# 18 |
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FINDERS KEEPERS LOSERS WEEPERS SLWA Art School at Conway Hall, Holborn November 2014 to February 2015
SLWA ART SCHOOL has grown out of the desire to create a professional pathway for ourselves and strengthen our understanding and critical engagement with contemporary practice. Supporting emergent and established artists, ART SCHOOL works in two ways; it looks inwards calling on the experience and expertise of our member artists to share their knowledge to support ourselves emotionally, critically and technically in our art making and invites external arts practitioners that we would like to meet, hear talk and discuss their work. The aim is to encourage a high level of research and enquiry and is designed to promote discussion. At Hide Gallery, Catrin Huber, artist and Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University spoke about her diverse practice that investigates representations of fictional and imagined architectural space; Dr Alison Green, Senior Lecturer on the BA (Hons) Criticism, Communication and Curation course at Central Saint Martins talked her interviews with American visual artist Carolee Schneemann; at Studio Voltaire Turner prize-nominated artist Marvin Gaye Chetwynd discussed her performative work, homemade costumes and menagerie of influences. ART SCHOOL aims to respond to the needs and requests of our membership, so recently as part of the Finders Keepers Losers Weepers residency at Conway Hall, SLWA brought together four academics to talk about their individual research topics in relation to the theme of the show - possession, loss and how we process the metaphysical in material culture. The cross-disciplinary symposium brought together Post-Doctorate fellow Margaret Carlyle, Professor Tina Chanter and artist and Senior Lecturer Jessica Voorsanger, and was chaired by Professor Rebecca Fortnum. In addition, to support the development of new site-specific work we held regular studio crits at member artists’ studios: the Biscuit Factory, Bermondsey at Christine Landreth and Melissa Budasz’ studio and at Lucy Soni’s 19 |
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ACME studio in Peckham. These peer review sessions are essential encounters that informally offer advice and feedback on work in progress and new work. This is especially important as many of us work in isolation in the studio and are taking risks with our work. Artists are invited to bring work for discussion and make a short presentation. The crit leader guides the group to consider meaning, process, context, technical advice and even recommended suppliers - an extremely useful means of problem solving, moving work forwards and exchanging ideas, and it always good to hear artists articulate their practice in their own words. Thanks to our Arts Council England funding we were able to invite international artist Aleksandra Mir to lead a crit at Beata Kozlowska’s studio at Studio Voltaire and artist Professor Rebecca Fortnum to a crit, again at Lucy Soni’s studio. I had the privilege of leading the crit at Conway Hall, looking at the finished works hung in situ, developed from initial proposal though to installation. As well as bringing the knowledge and experience of the visiting artist to us as individual artists, inviting artists to talk benefits the group by extending our networks and brings us to the attention of academic practitioners and perhaps even advocates. Even if the artist’s work does not resonate with our own, you will always gain insight or take away a kernel of knowledge that will grow to inform your practice. ART SCHOOL attempts to provide post degree level learning that doesn’t cost £9,000 a year. You set the curriculum, let us know what you want to know about. Dates for SLWA ART SCHOOL’S ongoing professional development to be announced soon: Articulating our practice Member artists talks, any media Film night Artists working with the moving image Technical sessions Supporting the practicalities of being a contemporary artist
Written by Laura Moreton-Griffiths - further details contact projects@slwa.co.uk 20 | ArtV erve March 2015, Edition
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FINDERS KEEPERS LOSERS WEEPERS SLWA Educational Workshops at Conway Hall, Holborn November 2014 to February 2015
Finders, Keepers, Losers, Weepers - a playground chant and the title of an innovative exhibition by 34 members of the South London Women Artists Collective that responds to the history and physicality of Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London. Starting in the gallery the exhibition runs around the entire building from the roof to the basement offering a unique experience. Working with primary and secondary schools local to Conway Hall, exhibiting artists explored with students the series of interventions found throughout the building using specifically designed art trail maps. Analysing their personal responses to the exhibition and incorporating their own ideas, students made a paper sculpture time capsule that became part of the exhibition. To prepare students for their visit to Conway Hall, a group of the artists ran workshops in schools. In discussion with art teachers, the artists presented a power point illustrating ideas running through the project. The power point was as eclectic as the exhibition itself but served as a spark for thought, discussion and provocation. It showed work by exhibiting artists, including Laura Moreton-Griffiths, whose work, informed by the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, weaves elements of the past into a contemporary framework. In contrast to this, issue based work was discussed e.g. the seed bank at Kew and its aim to cope with current and future environmental threats. Each of the thirty four artists worked on this project responded in different ways but used the same mind map as a starting point which was drawn on the wall of the Brockway Room. Topics included possession and loss, the mind, brain, archaeology, metaphysics, time, story-telling and the future.
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During the workshops students focused on the notions of space and time. What will we find in the future? What will we want to keep from today? What would we like to lose? These were the questions students considered individually and in small groups whilst drawing out their own mind maps. Their strongest ideas were developed into small paper sculptures time capsules. These were hung like space stations from the ceiling in the Brockway Room at Conway Hall. Students were invited to the private view to see their work exhibited alongside that of the other exhibiting artists.
Conway Hall, owned by the Conway Hall Ethical Society, was opened in 1929 and holds the Humanist Archive. Humanism is non-religious, and looks to science, reason, empathy and compassion in order to live an ethical and meaningful life. Jim Walsh, C.E.O of Conway Hall, welcoming each cohort of students, gave a fascinating talk about the history of the building and introduced some of the ideas that had informed the exhibition. Sitting in the Brockway Room, named after Fenner Brockway, politician, pacifist and imprisoned for distributing anti-conscription leaflets in 1916, we learned how this building has witnessed discussion about social reform including the earliest talks concerning the National Health Service. These talks initiated lively question and answers sessions with students from both primary and secondary schools. Jim was delighted to have so many young people in the building and looks forward to nurturing these new relationships with schools in the future.
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For the practical part of the session each student folded their own specifically designed sketchbook and in small groups, using their maps, set off with an exhibiting artist to discover each intervention. The art trail covered the entire building including basement and balcony, offering opportunities for exploring parts of the building not normally accessible to the public. Students were delighted to have the opportunity to talk with artists and to learn in detail how work was made. They were particularly interested in artists’ personal thought processes. Using their sketchbooks students were encouraged to draw what they liked best in the exhibition and to make notes.
Meeting back in the Brockway room for the plenary session students talked enthusiastically about what they had seen, learned and enjoyed. They were excited to see their work as part of the overall exhibition. One primary school pupil was overheard saying ‘we are all artists now’. In the evaluation session they wrote, amongst many things, ‘I learnt that there are different types of art and it is all important as long as it expresses something’ and ‘I have learnt about the history of this building which has been very interesting, how the art was made and the stories behind the work’.
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Written by Jackie Brown and Moira Jarvis - further details contact education@slwa.co.uk
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SLWA NOTICEBOARD KEY DIARY DATES
Women of the World Festival Southbank Centre 1-8 March 2015 WOW London celebrates its fifth birthday this year and we’re delighted to announce the full programme of speakers and performers.
Tuesday 3 March 2015 Bobby Baker DRAWING ON A (GRAND) MOTHER'S EXPERIENCE Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall
Birds Eye View International Women’s Day Screening: Dreamcatcher Screening + Kim Longionotto Q&A at BFI Southbank Sunday 8th March 3pm bit.ly/BEVDreamcatcher TICKETS: £8.15 - £11.50
Saturday 7 March LIFE DRAWING women-only Spirited Bodies with a group of varied models at the Southbank Centre 5-7pm FREE SLWA guest list. Please RSVP if you would like to go. This extends to female life drawing students also. info.spiritedbodies@gmail.com http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/wow-saturday-pass-2015-88802?dt=2015-03-07 25 | ArtV erve March 2015, Edition 3
Studio space available from March 2015 Biscuit Factory, Bermondsey Creekside artists, collective- (based for next 2 years in Biscuit Factory ) have a space from beginning of March. Warm, light and dry facilities in modern well maintained block (Workspace). Really great environment. Very reasonable rent, around ÂŁ125 per month all inclusive. Please contact Christine Landreth in first instance Christine.landreth@hotmail.co.uk www.creeksideartists.co.uk
SLWA Website Workshop invited to all members on Thursday 5 March 2015 Book your drop in session between 11am-3pm, email website-team@slwa.co.uk to secure your place
SLWA URBAN Drawing Day Sunday 8 March 2015 2-5pm at BRIXTON EAST, 100 Barrington Road, SW9 7JF. All welcome.
SLWA Book Club next date Wednesday 22 April 2015 7.30-9.30pm. Email webmistress@slwa.co.uk for further information. Books for discussion by the novelist Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin Alias Grace Cat's Eye Surfacing The Handmaid's Tale
SLWA AGM at BRIXTON EAST 100 BARRINGTON ROAD SW9 Wednesday 8 July 7-10pm
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ArtVerve
A South London Women Artists Magazine
Contributors: Jackie Brown Melissa Budasz Joan Byrne Ilinca Cantacuzino Yolanta Gawlik Pia Goddard Laura Moreton-Griffiths Moira Jarvis Liz Charsley-Jory Beata Kozlowska Anne Krinsky Editor Melissa Budasz Contributing Editors Pia Goddard, Laura Moreton-Griffiths, Moira Jarvis If you would like to contribute to our next magazine in September 2015 or write a review on a show please email webmistress@slwa.co.uk
Website
www.southlondonwomenartists.co.uk
Copyright Š 2015 SLWA All rights reserved
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ArtVerve
March 2015, Edition 3
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ArtVerve
March 2015, Edition 3