Shows in the City

The MA Contemporary Curatorial Practice students curated 5 exhibitions around the city in Spring/Summer 2015. Here is a bit about them.

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Misc. Don. was a collaborative exhibition with the Lincolnshire Archives and artists hosted at The Collection’s Courtyard Gallery.

 The exhibition explored the intriguing relationship between how an archive is defined, how it is categorised, how it is used by a multitude of people and how artists respond to archives and archiving. Misc. Misc.Don. worked in conjunction with the Lincolnshire Archives’ Miscellaneous Donations collection, also known as ‘Misc. Don.’ which brings together a plethora of interesting paper-based artefacts and reflects the multi-stranded definition of what an archive can be. Alongside the archive and the notion of archiving, the Misc. Don. collection was a catalyst for the artists’ work featured in the exhibition as the classification brings forth a prospect and excitement of the unknown. Curated by Sophia Kyprianou.

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Curio is a miniature mobile gallery, which has been designed to encourage and support collaborative artistic practice. At the heart of the project is the objective to create an investigative environment that invites progression through experimentation. By design Curio has the ability to operate within a variety of environments and encourages artists to take inspiration from public places. ‘Reactions’ is a set of commissions developed for the purpose of an academic investigation, as part of the MA Contemporary Curatorial Practice research project by Nicholas Simpson.

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The aim of these commissions was to examine the value of creative conversation in the development of a project. The commissions culminated in a set of two site specific performances, Evening gold with artist’s James Richardson, Henry Alan, and Catharine Pritchard and Pipe with artist James Hubbell which aimed to respond and react to the City of Lincoln. The project began with a talk delivered by Chris Dobrowolski, the subject of which aligned with the concept of the Curio Reactions project. This talk was used as a catalyst for conversation surrounding the beginning stages of the creative activity.

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The Purdah Press is a newspaper in which 9 artists respond to the notion of democracy.

What is democracy? How do artists interpret democracy? What can artists see and convey that others can’t?

The form of a paper was chosen for this project because it is a well-known format to everyone. There is a long history of papers being used as carriers to convey political messages. They provide the freedom to disseminate ideas to a whole range of audiences. The Purdah Press will be handed out in Lincoln on General Election Day, 7 May 2015.Curated By Danielle Bastiaens.

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A4 Project–一纸素笺 was an exhibition which showcase peoples’ creativity, particularly using A4 Paper.It featured a wide range of creative responses to paper from invited artists, students, friends, teachers, children from a range of backgrounds, cultures and ages. Curated by Li Yangqing.

Narrative for the exhibition

Paper is a great important invention of ancient China.
It was invented by Ts’ai Lun in 105AD, and it has never left our lives.
The children use it to show their first dream.
The old use it to leave their last wish.
The painters create works with it.
The writers use it to write stories.
People use it to record memories, thoughts and to create new ones.

Do you remember your first diary?
Do you remember love poem given to you?
Do you remember those paper cranes you made for someone special?
In other words, do you remember when you got your first piece of paper?

Life is like a piece of blank paper, and we can use our feet and hands to trace out and describe our life. We use hands and feet to leaving a colorful step on the paper of our lives.
If you got a piece of paper, what would you want to do with it?

We want to show everyone that we can use the simple things to create our own piece of art work.
Time flies, but who still remember the last time to get a piece of white paper which brings happiness and the impulse of creation ?
Now, it is the time for us to find our own creativity.
Offer you a piece of A4 paper and give me a miracle arts back, OK?