hello

Hello Everyone

My apologies for my absence of late… life has been hectic recently, but in an exciting way, lots of art things going on, although not so much my own, but absorbing other people’s, which inevitably feeds into one’s own…


Well, what have I been up to. I feel like I have had a big shift in perspective since being offered a studio at Wysing. Whilst I was writing my application I felt so excited, and I was thinking it through as a reality…how different it would make my life, the daily routine and how it was, and I, what I feel like I have been heading towards over the past year or eighteen months or so. The week in which the panel were meeting it suddenly dawned on me what happens if I am not offered a studio? I get so carried away when writing applications, and so excited in the possibilities, that I guess if I am honest I hadn’t considered what I would do if it didn’t all go as I was imagining whilst writing the application…. How to continue with my work as some kind of hobby…to carry on working full time and trying to squeeze my work into the small hours around a job.

Thankfully I now don’t have to worry about not getting a studio. It has been quite liberating to think my work is not going to be squeezed into small spaces of time around money forever. And it has shifted my perspective. I have been out more in the past couple of months than I have been in ages….all of a sudden being part of a dialogue and engaging in conversations has a priority over being stuck in an office….(ok, so it’s not all perfect, I am still stuck in an office at the moment, but knowing I have this change ahead is very, very exciting!).

Some thoughts from the Spill symposium….

The work is not about something. It is something.
It is a space to be inhabited.

Presence in the context of absence

The way in which you say it is as important as what you say.

Art is a way of stimulating dialogue…
(art as a space in which one feels valid to say what one wants to say, despite now knowing all the time exactly what that thing is one may want to say)

Detailed private conversation in public

Following an itch…. Trusting one’s own itch
Trusting one’s own curiosity.

Reserving one’s right to fail.


I think the last time I actually posted anything on the blog was when I was writing about wanting to make a piece of work, and knowing that it had to be live. At the time I was trying to work out whether to submit an application to something. The work, for me, at the time was exciting and I felt really engaged with it. On my own with it I feel confident in it as an image and as an idea…..it is when that passes into a more public space that I feel less confident…not that the work changes so much, it is still my work, I remain engaged in it. The anxious-ness of it and the self doubt have to be ridden with, or rather one had to ride them out, to bear with it and continue to follow that itch, to trust one’s own curiosity…. However uncomfortable that might be…and to allow it to expand, so one could be challenged by it over again, or in a different way…

Stepping out of one’s own comfort zone and taking the risk with the work, for the work. I feel quite tense this week. I will show the work I mentioned on the blog several weeks, maybe months ago, at the EEC platform on Saturday night. If anyone is around and interested I will post details on the blog when I find the information…(probably tomorrow night)…it would be good to see people, or even if anyone is going to Shabs’s Speakers Corner on Friday night- would anyone like to go for a drink afterwards?


It was really lovely to see those people that were around in London in March- I was gutted that I missed the night at Rachel’s on the Monday- it sounds like it was a good evening. There is so much more to say, but I don’t want to invade the blog and fill up an entire page, so I will come back tomorrow or later in the week and write again…lots of things to say…it sounds like everyone has been very busy recently- which is a good reason for us all to meet up and catch up….is everyone going on Friday? Or maybe a picnic in a park somewhere on the bank holiday Monday?

I’ll be back again soon.

With love

Kat.

please forward to everyone you know in london, i'm desperate for an audience above 5 - i'm not really that sorry for cross posting

13 Morsels To Suck On
- 7 pm Thursday, 26th April - Pump House Gallery, London (Battersea Park -
http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/Home/LeisureandTourism/Pumphousegallery/talks.htm)

Thorn-in-the-side of your local Multi-National, the vacuum cleaner, present 11 of their current favourite films and stories from a across Europe and the USA. Political pranks, art activism and acts of creative resistance with all the subtle one can expect from groups with names like The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army and The Space Hijackers.

The show will last 1 hour approx, be very informal and I'm told there will be some free beer.
http://www.vacuum.org.uk/morsels/

Part of The Art of Protest, organsied by Home - http://www.lgihome.co.uk/ - which includes Richard DeDomenici's well good solo show. (i haven't actually seen it yet, but i know it will be great.)

best

James

http://www.thevacuumcleaner.co.uk

DIY 4

DIY 4:2007
Professional development projects BY artists FOR artists across the UK

APPLY NOW to participate
FINAL REMINDER for first four projects

DIY 4 offers artists working in Live Art the opportunity to take part in a unique series of eclectic and unusual professional development projects conceived and run BY artists FOR artists.

The DIY 4 programmes take many forms from camping trips and walking tours, to workshops and group meetings. And between them cover areas of exploration from humour, through analysing the 'day job' to survival (just to name a few).

Apply to take part in one or all of the DIY 4 projects with deadline 30 April:

Places we've never been
A series of three walks from the centre of London to destinations within the boundary of the M25 motorway with a follow-up discussion/showing.
Led by Daniel Gosling
Monday 21, Wednesday 23, and Friday 25 May and showing on 9 June 2007
London


From Life-Change to Dream-Space: encouraging the outlandish, nurturing the fanciful, discarding the limiting
A project with a focus on play and escape from everyday concerns for artists with practices and lives affected by health issues.
Led by Lucille Power
Four sessions between May and August 2007 (exact dates to be determined with participants)
London


What's missing - eating, talking, sharing challenge; regaining autonomy in performance training
Four mid to late career artists will spend four intensive days leading each other in training and questioning around body as site.
Led by Rajni Shah
Five sessions between May and August 2007 (see full description for dates)
London


'Survival'
A wilderness ritual - an invitation to step outside of one's social and artistic comfort zone and move with the flow of the city itself.
Led by Orion Maxted and Al Paldrok
Friday 15 June to Wednesday 20 June 2007
The Sussex Downs to central London


Full details for all projects and links for further information are available online:
http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/prof_dev/diy/DIY4_allprojects.html

DIY 4 is a collaboration between the Live Art Development Agency, Artsadmin, and New Work Network, and is being developed with Nuffield Theatre/LANWest, New Work Yorkshire, Fierce Festival, Colchester Arts Centre, The Basement Arts Production South East, and Dance4. DIY 4 is part of Joining the Dots, a Live Art Development Agency initiative supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

opportunityes.. x x x

Stick*Stamp*Fly Gasworks wants your posters!

Deadline: 15 June 2007




Gasworks
155 Vauxhall Street
London SE11 5RH
UK

T:+44 (0)20 7582 6848
F:+44 (0)20 7582 0159
info@gasworks.org.uk
www.gasworks.org.uk

Tube: Vauxhall/Oval
Bus: 2, 36, 88, 133, 185, 436

Admission is free.

Gasworks has full wheelchair access.

Gasworks wants your posters!
Following the success of Blink in 2006, Gasworks’ new open submission project for 2007 will work with the format of the poster.

Selectors:
Åbäke (design collective)
Alessio Antoniolli (Director, Gasworks)

How practitioners work with the poster format is entirely open to ideas. You can design a poster for announcing an event whether fictitious or real, create some form of artwork, or create some other sort of statement. The distinctive feature of this project is that will combine an open-submission with activities based presentations developed in conjunction with the selectors. It will be a cross-disciplinary project open to all based in the UK, and is intended to connect with different individuals who either already work with the format of poster design, or would be interested to use this opportunity to work with this format for the first time.

The selected poster designs will be exhibited at Gasworks over one of the three weeks of the project in August. The three weeks of the exhibition will use a selection of the posters submitted as inspiration for a series of events.

For further info and a submission form please see: http://www.gasworks.org.uk/stickstampfly stick*stamp*fly is the second of a series of open submission projects set to take place annually at Gasworks. The project has been led by a desire to see new work and to do so through a more transparent and democratic method of research. Gasworks is committed to working with emerging artists and such a project enables us to connect with artists directly at a grassroots level.

These events have been made possible with generous support from the Esmeé Fairbairn Foundation.

For further information please contact:
stickstampfly@gasworks.org.uk
Tel: 020 7582 6848

images

more images to follow..

Will - I am sorry too!

I've been SO wrapped up in my project and myself that I forgot when your pv was...should have put it in my diary. No excuses for this...just crap. And i'm pissed cos i wanted to see your stuff. soz. Hope you're good. Be nice to drop by your studio for coffee and chat - when are you there over next couple of weeks?

Lisa
xx


p.s. I WILL get around to posting images sooon

who as not go it toghether ???

Hi Franko

Hope you're well, haven't seen you around much lately, although I've
had my
head down very busy ...

I'm still waiting for a few more pics and some text, but apart from
that the
new mentoring site is updated (not live yet). I've archived the old
data in
the same format and used the layout for the new ones. The only change
I've
made is to run the images in a slideshow on the same page (not a new
window,
which Frances and I discussed). There are also a couple of video clips
(Jon
and Lisa) which is nice.

Go to: www.franko-b-mentoring.co.uk/2007

Let me know if you have any comments re: layout.

Best, Jo

ron athey and dominic jonson a the chelsea thearte

Ron Athey and Dominic Johnson, 'Incorruptible Flesh (Perpetual Wound)'
Chelsea Theatre, London.

Part of Sacred: A Season of New Live Art.
24-27 April and 1-2 May 2007.
8pm. Tickets £12 (£8).

In a collaborative performance, Ron Athey and Dominic Johnson explore Self-Obliteration, Inner Pigginess, and Mystical Grandiosity. Starting with a palate of ideas about sex, death and sparkle, the myth of Philoctetes is transplanted into the California deserts in the heat of August, creating rituals of transubstantiation in magickal excess.

Ron Athey and Lawrence Steger began researching the collaborative performance, Incorruptible Flesh, in 1996. Like wax dummy saints blessed with the miracle of inviolate bodies, there was much injecting and powdering to be done to fight off corrosion. The morbidity was driven by the shared, long-term HIV+ status of Athey and Steger--healthy and sick, respectively. In 2006, Steger now dead, Athey and Johnson continue the collaborative process, based around the myth of the perpetual wound.

For more information, and to book tickets, visit: www.chelseatheatre.org.uk/ron.htm

Chelsea Theatre, World's End Place, King's Road, London SW10 0DR. TEL: 0207 7352 1967
For information on how to get to the theatre, visit:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=526493&y=177419&z=0&sv=sw10+0dr&st=2&pc=sw10+0dr&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf

Incorruptible Flesh will also be presented at Fierce Festival in Birmingham, on 30th May. See http://www.fiercetv.co.uk/index.php?controller=event&mm_action=view&id=122

* * *

Ron Athey began performing in galleries with Rozz Williams in 1981. From 1992, he toured his Torture Trilogy, of which Martyrs & Saints, 4 Scenes in a Harsh Life, and Deliverance all toured internationally. Since 1998, he has also toured The Solar Anus, a solo performance based on the Surrealist autoportraiture of Pierre Molinier and the writings of Georges Bataille, which was most recently performed at the Hayward Gallery, London. He recently toured The Judas Cradle, an operatic duo-drama with the soprano Juliana Snapper, which was presented throughout the UK, as well as at RedCat in Los Angeles and Performa 05 in New York. Athey also works in visual art and journalism, and is writing a book on his Pentecostal upbringing, entitled Gifts of the Spirit. www.ronathey.com

Dominic Johnson has presented performance work in the UK at Sensitive Skin and National Review of Live Art, as well as in Croatia, Slovenia and the US. He has carried out performance and writing collaborations with Kris Canavan, Franko B and Ron Athey. He is the editor of Franko B: Blinded by Love (2006), and Manuel Vason's Encounters: Performance, Photography, Collaboration (2007), and has published writings in Chris Kraus's L.A. Art Land (2005), Women and Performance (2006), Slava Mogutin’s Lost Boys (2006), Frieze, Dance Theatre Journal, and elsewhere. He is a Lecturer in the School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London.

Ron Athey & Dominic Johnson

Hello all, Ron and Domonic are due to deliver a performance at the chelsea theatre

www.chelseatheatre.org.uk

Tuesday 24 April - Friday 27 April 2007 andTuesday 1 - Wednesday 2 May 2007
Ron Athey and Dominic Johnson Incorruptible Flesh (Perpetual Wound)
Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 concessions)
A collaborative performance in two parts, Ron Athey and Dominic Johnson explore Self-Obliteration, Inner Pigginess, and Mystical Grandiosity. Starting with a palate of ideas about sex, death and sparkle, the myth of Philoctetes is transplanted into the California deserts, in the heat of August, creating rituals of transubstantiation in magickal excess.

Anyone interested in hooking up for this event?

let me know what dates are best

Franko will you be going to the event? if so what date? hope everything is going ok out in italy...

boooiiiinnnngggg

if only one could publish images in a selected order

then suddenly life becomes a little clearer...

i think?

my brain keeps bouncing back and forth up and down this way and that...

and i don't rightly know where to start...

Minda & Biggi a 1000 apologise for not making events in the city but my health once again gets the better of me. i hope everything went really well and can't wait to read any feedback from your events

Feedback? Nothing was said about the tape drawings, only the drama of the floor afterwards.
how do you feel about them now post toynbee? Again for me it was something to do with capturing the moment and thinking about the way we draw and what we use to draw with.

Title - delicate surroundings

we were having the discussion about titles...
statements?
what is the purpose of a statement?
to coerce the audience into our way of thinking?
to set the scene?

just topics of conversation...

Will - if you get to read the blog i can only but say sorry as the arts council pull me in the other direction on the same day as the pv at jerwood, my thoughts are with you. go forth enjoy and have fun.

more of this to follow as i unjumble my brain.

lisa

Hey Lisa,
sorry it's me again. I very much enjoyed our coffee together and thank you very much for posing for my photos... and of course visiting my exhib. It's really curious how close our work is at times... I checked fleapit website and can't see any info on the gallery space... hm - am a bit confused...
could you give me your email address please? mine is b.stiller@btinternet.com
oxy doxy... more via email...
xx Biggi

Nerves kickin in

Hello everyone,

I hope your all well and have recovered from our intense week!?
I will post a more extensive message next week about the experiences, this is just a quick one to say I AM SHITTING MYSELF! It is the tate performance tonight (in 6 hours) and it is sinking in and nerves are taking hold...

wish me luck, i'll speak to you all soon (unless I totally cock this up and decide to elope!!)

Minda xxxx

Hi, hope everyone is well.

Rachel, thankyou so much for a lovely meal last Monday, you're such a great cook!

I hope everyone has a great easter in the sunshine...

Heard back from the RCA and I didn't get in , fuck em!

easter love,
Ninaxx

so frustrating

hello all,

Here I sit trying to upload some images of the week etc wanting to be with you all still; wanting the dialogue, laughter, anxiety, frustration, elation, motivation. For some reason the damn blogger will not let me publish images tonight, I've just tried for the third time; publish the blog, go back in and edit, try attaching again

AARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is so much going through my mind that I do not know where to start. Stevenage has not got the hustle and bustle of the markets with the food and the smells. The everyday senses that my mind has been tantalised by Africa and London are struggling top find the same things now that I'm back home.

folk ask me how it went and all I can do is smile at them, it's coy I know but words can not explain how I feel at the moment. I can only answer "watch this space" with the biggest smile on my face. I'm keeping my cards close to my chest as even I do not know where my work will go next and now that I'm rambling in rhyme; i say sorry to biggi I need more time. i had no option to be at home as I had a hospital appointment this afternoon.

I'm logging off now as I should be in bed. however the memories of march are rushing through my head. I hope you are all well and things are seeming clearer.

I'm thankful for this blog as you all seem so much nearer

t hank you

hello, i am also grateful. it was a god week i think. it was good to get to know everybody better. hopefully we can carry on from here. i know that most people have been saying similar things... i am sorry to have left this so long... love from tom.x and thank you to franko for facilitating it.
biggi - i am sorry to say that i won't be able to go to your private view because i have other plans, but i hope that it goes well for you. i like your pictures.
jon, i like your pictures too.
lisa, i like the way you write about the experience.
x

photographs of exhibition

guys, I can't believe that as soon as the mentoring week is over I suddenly understand how to post images... wow.
here are two of the four photographs I will be showing. So you get an idea.
and here is the idea behind those:

I am using photography as a means to capture and trigger an extended engagement with the ordinary. I’m proposing immersive encounters of isolation, self-consciousness, identity, anticipatory silence. My photographs form a series of intimate ‘still moments’ of a mundane reality that counterbalance the thematic intensity of my main practise that explores complex psychological states of identity, self-doubt and collective guilt. (ok, the half of the last sentence has now changed since last week)

The images of the series Library are part of a concept of the re-mystification of spaces. They evolved in response to the space they were initially exhibited in (library of The Foundry).

;-) Biggi

P.V. tonight, Tuesday 6pm - 9pm

sorry, left the message already as a comment on Jon's message but just to make visible to everyone again:
Hi all,
just with VERY SHORT NOTICE to tell everyone that since yesterday I am participating in an one week exhibition at top of Brick Lane... and P.V. is tonight 6-9pm. They are a bunch of old photographs... so nothing terribly exciting but it would be lovely to see a friendly face tonight (as everyone seems to have made plans already, sniff). It is from 6pm until 9pm. It's organised through Artshole... Here is the website with details
http://www.artshole.co.uk/ (they used my birth name: Birgitt Stiller, just in case you are wondering) and this is the gallery website http://www.secondspacegallery.com/ it's at bottom end of Redchurch street.
So just in case some of you feel terribly bored tonight and don't know what to do... come along.
Biggi

suddenly everyhting seems so different

hello all ,

It's sunday evening and after waiting 2 days to get my net connection up and running again and some much needed rest I can only add my thanks to the list which has gone already. Franko, I've posted a comment on your post. A really big thankyou for being there and enabling me the opportunities that have arising to date. Thank you for caring.

Thanks go to Rachel for the hospitality given on monday. it was great to catch up with all of you from last years scheme, to discuss how things have developed. Lucille, sorry i missed your performance at RVT. I hope all went well, unfortunatley after an intense week i needed to get some rest.

To all of this years group, it was a pleasure to spend time with you all and to get an insight into your work, thoughts and feelings. Thank you for your feedback and allowing me the chance to continue with my obsevations. Observations and layers are something that I now realise are a

continuous theme within my work.

Minda, I hope everything is ok at home, my thoughts are with you.

lisa, I look forward to the post of video and sound, talking with you in depth has given me a belief in the direction of my work. Performance/live art - where do I start?

my mind is still reeling from the week and there is so much that I want to say. However I still need time to digest my thoughts so more of this later.

sorry about the out of focus images. should have checked them before posting