Workshop Projects @ Workshop East, 22 January

Some images of the installation of The Bakers at Workshop East on 22 January, thanks to all who came to the event and to Frankie Gallagher for inviting me to be involved in it.

Site Gallery, 16 January

It was great speaking with Alison Proctor from Siobhan Davies Studios and Martha Brown from Forge Bakehouse at Site Gallery on Saturday. Looking forward to working with Martha up in Sheffield during my residency 15 March - 9 April 2016.

Workshop Projects: Friday 22 January

On Friday 22 January I'm presenting a new work The Bakers (2015) as part of an evening of screenings at Workshop East, London alongside work by Rebecca Birch and Debra Welch. The first screening is at 7.30pm.

In Conversation at Site Gallery: Saturday 16 January, 2pm

If you are in Sheffield next Saturday... I will be speaking with Alison Proctor from Siobhan Davies Studios and Martha Brown from Forge Bakehouse about my forthcoming residency at Site Gallery. More info below...

Click here to book a place.

Join us for this introduction to artist Laura Wilson’s forthcoming Platform residency. Laura will be joined by Alison Proctor (Siobhan Davies Studios, London) and Martha Brown (Forge Bakehouse, Sheffield). They will discuss the themes of the residency, including Laura’s interest in the physicality of dough as a live material, its relationship to the human body and how this can be expressed through dance/movement.

Laura’s residency (15 March – 9 April 2016) will bring together professional dancers and bread bakers. The two groups will share skills and embark on the development of a series of performances, investigating the crossover between movement and the tactile, malleable quality of dough. The project will explore the traditions and historical development of both crafts, while Laura works towards making an extended video work and final performance.

Speaker Biographies
Laura Wilson (b. 1983, Belfast, based in London) works across a wide range of mediums producing sculpture, installation, drawing, video and performance. Selected exhibitions include: Black Top, Whitstable Biennale 2014, Whitstable, UK (2014); Pattern for a Dark Lantern, for Café Curio at Camden Arts Centre, London, UK (2013); Brick Project at Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2013), OUTPOST, Norwich, UK (2012) and W139, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2012); Tweespoor: Kunstparcours, De Warande, Turnhout, Belgium (2012); Portrait of Space, Clonlea Studios, Dublin, Ireland (2011); Header Stretcher Soldier Sailor Shiner Rowlock, Vitrine Gallery, London, UK (2011); Horse of a Different Colour, Siobhan Davies Studios, London, UK (2010). She was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Travel Fellowship (2011) to research bricks in China, Peru, The Netherlands and Belgium. In March 2016 Laura is presenting Brick Project at RIBA, London.

Martha Brown is the Founder and Head Baker at Forge Bakehouse, which opened November 2012 and moved to its premises and current location on Abbeydale Road in December 2014.
Martha is a native Sheffielder with a passion for baking. For her, bread baking combines science with creativity and is not too dissimilar to how bread has been traditionally made for thousands of years. She writes:
‘The environment of the bake house is full of sounds, smells, tastes and textures that engross you in the process. Dough is tactile. It’s fun to play around with and responsive to the hand’s movements and forces exerted on it. You are working with a living breathing mass of dough until it is baked. It’s so effected by the seasons, temperature and ingredients that you need a real understanding to work with those changes to ensure you are still making a consistent product.’

Alison Proctor is the Programme & Producing Manager at Siobhan Davies Dance, responsible for the arts programme at the company’s London studios and overseeing the production and touring of its performative work. She worked closely with Laura Wilson on her 2010 exhibition at Siobhan Davies Studios in London. Alison originally trained in dance and visual art, graduating from Roehampton University, London with a combined BA (Hons) degree. Following an injury, Alison retrained in lighting design. She was awarded a bursary for lighting design in dance by the Arts Council, worked with companies such as Rambert and Merce Cunningham, and joined the renowned lighting designer David Hersey. Alison now splits her time between her own ceramics practice and working for Siobhan Davies Dance.

Filming at HG Matthews

Last week I was filming at HG Matthew's brick works for my new film which i'm presenting at both Site Gallery as part of the group exhibition The Artist Proposes (17 December 2015 - 16 January 2016) and as a screening at Workshop East in January. More info soon.

Platform Residency 2015-16 at Site Gallery

Four projects have now been selected for Site Gallery's 2015-16 Platform residencies. Platform is a unique opportunity for artists to make new work in public exploring as the gallery turns into a studio and the creative process becomes the artwork. During the next season of experimental production we’ll be seeing the development of new work by:

• Lucy Beech and Edward Thomasson
• Beatriz Olabarrieta
• Anna Chrystal Stephens and Glen Stoker
• Laura Wilson

The artists were chosen from over 200 applicants by this year’s selection panel:
Site Gallery Artistic Director Laura Sillars and Curator Sara Cluggish
Kirsty Ogg, Director of Bloomberg New Contemporaries
Florian Roithmayr, Platform alumni artist, 2014-15
Representatives from our young people’s group, the Society of Explorers

About the artists:

Beatriz Olabarrieta (born 1979, Bilbao) will create a play for sculptural objects, which draws on interviews, conversation and fictional writing to give voice to the inanimate.

Laura Wilson (born 1983, Belfast) works across a wide range of mediums and her project will bring together professional dancers and bread bakers to create an extended video work and performance.

Lucy Beech (born 1985, Hull) and Edward Thomasson (born 1985, Stoke-on-Trent) have collaborated on performance projects since 2007. Their work together will use movement and sound to explore public intimacy and how people form relationships.

Anna Chrystal Stephens (born 1984, Plymouth) and Glen Stoker (born 1970, Bedford) will embark on a research project that explores alternative ways of living, rooted in a suspicion that our current socio-political and ecological systems of governance are failing.

For Platform 2014-15 we have seen new work in in development in the gallery by Helen Benigson, Florian Roithmayr, Simon and Tom Bloor, Mel Brimfield and Gwyneth Herbert, and Rory Pilgrim.
Join the conversation and find out more about previous residencies on the Platform blog 
Site Gallery gratefully acknowledges the support of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, funder of Platform 2013 – 2016.

Control Magazine Launch at Kate MacGarry Gallery

Control Magazine Issue Nineteen Launch

Tuesday 9 September, 6.30-8.30pm
at Kate MacGarry, 27 Old Nichol Street, London, E2 7HR

Kate MacGarry will be hosting the launch of the Nineteenth Issue of Control Magazine. Issue 19 brings together current, socially-engaged art practices. There will be an introduction to the new issue by the editor. Contributors include Ricardo Basbaum, Luke Cohen, Andrea Francke, Christian Nyampeta, Rosalie Schweiker, Emma Smith, Ross Taylor & Madalina Zaharia, Eva Weinmayr, Stephen Willats and Laura Wilson.

For more information please visit the Control website: www.controlmagazine.org