#exhibition2013

[urban-dialogues]

I Will Make Your Paths Straight, Lucy Lauener

Still from Video Installation

The piece is influenced by the following piece of scripture:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3: 5-6

[urban-dialogues]

White Knuckles, Antony Ward

Printed Polyester

This flag is like any other flag; in that it is a piece of rectangular fabric with a distinctive design with the intended purpose of being held as a symbol, as a signalling device and as a decoration. Ward has modified the design of Saint George’s cross to create this piece.

[urban-dialogues]

#francesca-­‐revelation_icon.#relics#£&xxxomg€$vii from Icons., Eran Tsafrir

In December 2011, members of ‘Occupy Justice’, a faction of ‘Occupy London’ took over a disused historical court building in London’s East End, where they held a series of “trials of the 1%”. Tsafrir photographed, filmed and recorded the activists in the courtrooms and detention cells of the derelict building, and after their departure, continued to document them in other private and public buildings across London.

The resulting body of works – ‘Icons.’ presents an iconography and alternative aesthetic of ‘Occupy’, challenging public perception of the movement and testing the idea of the ‘aestheticization of politics’ in the current socio-political environment.

‘Icons.’ is part of Tsafrir’s diG.shaKe.riSe.andblEEed,myloVe. project - a hub for the creation of artwork questioning the potency of protest as an instrument for policy change in the UK.

[urban-dialogues]

Studio Chamber, Tessa Brown

Brushed cotton, silk taffeta, polyester rods, nylon cord, pulleys.

As a bespoke clothes-maker for many years, Tessa Brown understands  the importance of dressing as a means of communicating identity. In the act of getting dressed we are participating in the cultural life of the places we inhabit, using dress to express our desire to blend in or stand apart from particular groups. We all know that cloth has the capacity to both mask and reveal, often at the same time. Humans have produced  and traded textiles for millennia, the cloth, by it's very nature, carrying traces of the landscapes and the peoples that have brought it into being.

It seems as though cloth itself has potency and a capacity to transform, and it is this quality that Brown is exploring with her piece 'Studio Chamber'. In this instance, a neutral fabric is used to create a soft, translucent and temporary enclosure,which is a place 'to be' in. Or perhaps, to hide.

[urban-dialogues]

Neither A Beginning Nor An End, Flora Bowden

Ink and acrylic on paper

Flora Bowden’s work explores the rock formations of the Siccar Point, Berwickshire. In the 1780’s preeminent geologist James Hutton used his findings from Siccar Point to confirm key theories concerning the creation of the earth. Hutton’s work consequently redefined modern thinking relating to the age of the earth, the history of time, and readings of the Bible. In his Abstract of the Theory of the Earth (1785) Hutton wrote that ‘with respect to human observation, this world has neither a beginning nor an end.’

This piece is a detailed study of the landforms of Siccar Point. It uses the same surface area as the original abstract and addresses the deep sense of age and expansion inherent in this site. Through her piece, Flora Bowden explores how Siccar Point changed our understanding of time and created new narratives about the history of the earth

[urban-dialogues]

Punch & Judy: Tree of Jesse (Triptych), Helen Wilks

Graphite on paper with pine supporting poles

Using the archetypal figures of Punch and Judy, Tree of Jesse seeks to connect the quotidian to the grand. It is intended to portray a humanistic view of an ancient Old Testament story using a visual form often utilized across the centuries. The piece is influenced by other depictions of Old Testament stories, such as the mullion of the window at Dorchester Abbey in Oxfordshire.

[urban-dialogues]

Temple Mount, Adam J B Walker

Mixed Media

Temple Mount is an ephemeral colonization of space exploring spatial and social politics. It shifts between the monumental and the make-shift, the individual and the social, the inviting and the exposed, the sacred and the mundane, the awkward and the comfortable.

Adam creates transient artworks inviting participation. His most recent works have explored the politics of space, and the people within it. He is particularly interested in constructing frameworks which allow slippage between the roles of viewer and participant. In physically engaging in and inhabiting the work, the viewer/ participant might then take on the ‘author’ role too as they inscribe their experience of it with meaning.

[urban-dialogues]

Untitled, Romina Khanom

Rugs with geometric shapes cut out 

This floor installation is inspired by sacred text from the Qur’an, Arabic calligraphy and natural forms. Khanom was influenced by the grand patterns and geometry in Islamic art, which are used to convey the infinite nature of God. The depiction of patterns through patterns, looping through one another, embodies the spirituality which lies at the heart of the piece. Layers, arabesque, geometry, infinity—these are underlying themes that form the foundation of the installation.