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A visit, recounted

21st April 2021

the pigeon’s cüüüs curdle in my ear

their wings flap the warm, too warm, musty-aroma of the space in my direction

and it fills my mouth

                       

I SIT on a bench and conduct a little audit of the space’s usages

MAN SORTS ‘VIDEO CARDS’  (looks like football or pokemon cards but he tells me when i ask that they are, ‘video cards’)

MAN WATCHES VIDEO ON SMARTPHONE, HEADPHONES IN, KNEES SPREAD, PHONE BETWEEN KNEES, HUNCHED IN (but not quite falling in) WITH INTENT

MAN EATS SANDWICH THEN SITS FOR HOURS IN WHAT COULD BE DESCRIBED AS CONTEMPLATION: HIS EYES WASH OVER THE BUILDINGS, THE LINES, CURVATURES OF THE BUILDING. DOES HE TAKE PLEASURE FROM THIS?

                    Throughout the day i love to spot micro twinning efforts in and around the square-not-square: A perfectly placed farm foods, in sight from the square, waves the german flag in red-yellow-black, thank you very much an ornate doomed corner building over looking the square takes me to Bavaria. Munich perhaps. The arriva bus company’s internet, DB sponsored (the one perhaps deliberate effort in my noticings, a corporate result of the twinning town initiative), that doesn't let me connect as the bus moves ON The B1 bus stop sign that looks uncannily like the U5 line Old-kent-road-brown Blocky-font Neglected feel. Berlin, not Osnabrück, but I’ll take it. Ryan joins in my game when we buy our picnic later in the day from germany’s
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Categories: Katy Hawkins, Uncategorised
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A New Kind of Guardian

6th April 2021
Carrying on from my last post – I started looking at collaborative ways of making artworks that relate to Derby's public spaces. After scouring the web for inspo and coming up with nothing, I remembered a childhood game called Consequences. You might’ve played it with your nan. The aim of this game is to assemble a sentence together. It’s usually done on paper, with each player completing and then folding over their section to hide it from the next. This means you’re only allowed to see the last word written down. It's a kind of older, more PG version of Cards Against Humanity. There’s also a set of rules to stop it from being completely wild. For example, one set of rules could be: The-adjective-noun-adverb-verb-the-adjective-noun. AKA The-anxious-artist-swiftly-scribbled-the-dreadful-doodle. Although created way back when, as a parlor game for posh Europeans - it also just happens that this game is closely tied to The Surrealists™. An artistic movement I referenced last week, which gives me at least ten art points. Their method wasn’t called Consequences, it held a more morbid name - The Exquisite Corpse. This edgier version doesn't focus solely on words like Consequences does – but images too. Following a similar set of rules, players would draw a different section of the image. Often times this assemblage ends up being some kind of figurative work, with somebody responsible for the limbs, head, torso etc. A kind of Frankenstein’s monster. This led me to think about monsters and hybrids - particularly
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Hardscape

29th March 2021
So, I begin my residency from just down the road in Nottingham. The pandemic has left me unable to visit Derby – which is obviously an interesting challenge for a site-specific project. So, I have no choice than to leap-frog into the city through all available portals. I’m resigned to the clunky websites of local history enthusiasts, maps provided by the all-seeing eye of Google and good old fashioned human conversation - albeit through the Zoomiverse. Since the dawn of land ownership in Britain, common land has been a contentious topic.  This last year public land and property has been a huge part of the post-pandemic zeitgeist – which comes as no surprise. Who gets to use certain spaces? What can and can’t you do in them? I applied for this opportunity with the word ‘Psychogeography’ plastered all over my application. So, in order for you to follow my train of thought – I’ll start there. What is psychogeography? This is the clear part, simply put it’s the way a place can influence one’s psyche. It does what it says on the etymological tin. Psychogeography was originally developed in the early 1950s. A gang of pan-European mavericks who would later be known as 'The Situationists' conjured up the field. With a penchant for red wine drinking and Marxist thinking, these flaneurs produced a number of books, exercises and visual art forms used to highlight the role of the built environment in our minds. As with the situationists and Marxist thinkers of their time, modern
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Categories: Ryan Heath, Uncategorised, Visions of an Unmade City
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Week 1

15th January 2020
I have been thinking about turning the way I view my own work from previous projects on its head – instead of intuitively looking at composition, progression I am taking a step back from what I feel is the final outcome, changing my perspective on my primary collages and sketches and planning to weave them into a projection, or into the filmed documentation showing the progression and transition of an idea. David has also given very solid advice to not go with what you feel or what your normal stages of work would be, but to refresh my approach and try something that is out of my creative box, allowing me to grow as an artist. The notion of my sketches and collages as a projection would be quite minimal as I often feel like I have shown my methods and documentation with but separate to the final outcome, stopping once the physical object is completed. It would be interesting to take the sculptural interpretation of the collages and continue to make the physical work, but for the final outcome to be a visual experience rather that a physical sculpture, and this would be broadening my creative intention towards my practice. Reading peter Eisenman’s ‘Diagram Diaries’ I came across these two quotes: the first is about the technical aspects of lines and dimensions and the process through which shapes become diagrams; “Technical preconditions that would allow modern architecture to refound itself... on the twin bases
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Categories: Sinead Kerr, Uncategorised
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Feeling positive and inspired.

14th December 2019
“Winter narratives “ Is my first residency ever, and I was actually quite anxious about it. But when I reached the location, and met up with all of these lovely artists, I was feeling comfortable right away. The location of the program, i.e. Highness farm, sits by the ravines of the Mahi river, and is a habitat for various beautiful insects and birds, which is quite different from the location of my studio, which sits in the middle of a concrete jungle. This change is beautiful, I sketch and paint, and when I get bored, I just go for a stroll around the property and often spot some migratory birds and cute insects. The fact about this residency, which includes a varied set of artists of all ages and different kind of knowledge, makes an amazing ground for exchanging powerful thoughts. I am finally feeling fresh and positive, and maybe, also got some lead to my future body.
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04 Dec

Come on in – Small Promethean Acts installation

The beautiful gallery space at Artcore seems to have been made for this installation of 'Small Promethean Acts'. The circular room has a very high ceiling from which a circular glass mobile hangs in the centre. Eight small speakers hang from the ceiling in the middle at head height so that you can place them to your ear to hear recorded stories about small acts of care collected from the public in Derby. It is lit with a warm light from spots on the wall and there is light enough to see 20 or more small assemblage sculptures made from tiny stoneware figures that have been made to fit around found domestic objects.

Not all the work was made for this installation. Some existing work sits next to new work made from things found, mostly on the streets, during the residency - like a serving platter, a Ruskin bowl, a child's hoover toy, plates, and a teapot. Others are older items that were found and kept over the years, like the singer sewing machine, an old typewriter, some taps, a string pot and a dustpan.

The sculptures are displayed on old white furniture of different sizes, used as plinths and arranged in a semi-circle ending in a snail shape that you enter to listen to the stories. They do not illustrate the stories, that are told quietly in a small hum that emanates from the speakers

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01 Sep

Salt: A Visual Journey

Salt and Water. Water and Salt.

  Salt and Water. Water and Salt. One is born from the other. Each can be separated from the other. Once called White Gold, a currency, the rise of wealth, the cause of war and exploitation. Sacred, holy it wards of evil. Its spillage is sinful and can bring bad luck. A sign of hospitality, loyalty and treachery.     The more I research salt the more connections it seems to have with the human condition, culture and identity. I wanted to use the residency as an opportunity to really consider the medium I work with. To explore its properties, to play with it, to learn about it, to understand its benefits and limitations. Playing with materials is such a vital part of my artistic process; it allows me to experiment and expand my thoughts, seeing the materials move, change and react allow me to visually transfer text-based research and ideas through symbolism. I will not adopt a masterly tone and bore you, rather allow me to take you on a visual journey             Both salt and water are essential and detrimental to our existence. The first part of this process was seeing what would happen to a chunk of Himalayan salt under a running tap within a few minutes the water created a hole within the salt. What was dry on the surface was now glistening and part translucent.   Read More
Categories: Artist, Current Exhibitions, Nisa Khan, Residency6:No matter how strong, Uncategorised
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Re-Imagine the city residency Artist selected announcement

6th June 2018

Re-Imagine the city residency

Artist selected announcement

Artcore is delighted to announce Katharina Fitz and Jess Price as the two artists selected for Re-imagine the City, a two months residency focusing on learning from the city and use of public space. The project aims to explore the issues that shape the city. The artists selected will work with local communities to map, re-imagine and influence the places where we live and work. Katharina Fitz is a Nottigham based artist whose work focuses mainly on conceptual photography as well as sculpture. Since 2016 she has introduced different mediums such as casting, mould making, woodwork and ceramics into her practice. She is concerned with subjects surrounding urban sociology showing the structures, processes, phenomenon, and problems that are part of urban life and human interactions with a special interest in shared memory and social and cultural aspects of life. she classifies objects into groups in order to appreciate their characteristics and reflect upon their narratives. Therefore repetition and the interconnections between object and subject play an important role in her practice. Her work is characterized by an objective and conceptual line following clear structures. To find out more about Katharina Fitz, please visit: www.katharinafitz.com Jess Price is a Derby based artist whose practice gravitates towards addressing political themes more and more. She is especially interested in how politics is portrayed in art. When looking at political artists she has found their views have been shown either aggressively obvious
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