LABPLUS is a project space for MA Fine Art / MA Contemporary Curatorial Practice
Eleni Zevegaridou
NOMATEI – A Koinõnia of Minumental Figures – Staging II- Crossroads
11th – 18th May
Average people are worth a monument/minument. The sitters for this body of work come from the University of Lincoln. Students and staff are individuals that form a Koinõnia (society). Their paths meet and diverge. Every encounter involves an opportunity to enrich our experience in life. Placing their figures in their working space, I want to increase the feeling of belonging and the perception that they have their footprint in this place, in other words enhance their commitment to the Institution hoping that they will feel appreciated and recognised.
https://elenizevgaridou.wordpress.com
MichelleForrest-Beckett
4th -8th May
The exposed, glassed walls of the lab space was a daunting prospect but mirrored the exposed, glassy, Georgian windows that make-up the cuboid space that I propose to install and communicate my thoughts within the gallery space to be viewed.
I found myself standing outside the lab space staring through the windows, looking at my windows propped up against the wall, which helped me relate to the sense of containment I wanted my cuboid to evoke. I wanted to create an external space for thought, a ‘moratorium’ (Drymalski, 2013) or quasi-death, where activity is suspended, contained and incubated to be reflected upon. Containing my thoughts and more importantly my emotions attached to these thoughts, like projecting a perplexing dream, allowing me to ‘reflexively re-experience’ with ‘awareness’ (Bracegirdle, p17, 2007)
Creating an external space to stand outside my thoughts, I was hoping I would discover something previously hidden, whether it be a secret or something unrealised. I could look behind the curtain or even raise the curtain, like the end of a play, a symbolic ritual or rite of passage, that marks the end of something, to allow me on the outside to return to reality and emerge in a transformative sense, from the depths of a narrative I had been holding onto as a way of surviving.
The grid design of a Georgian window in particular, reflects a spatial contradiction. While the grid of the window reframes perspective and enables a ‘centrifugal reading’, creating the capacity to experience possibility and hope by seeing a world beyond the boundaries of the frame, paradoxically, the ‘centripetal nature’ of the grid window also creates a narrow, self-absorbed, inward looking perspective, with the claustrophobic ability to repress and to leave one dwelling in solitude. (Krauss, 1985)
The psychological paradox experienced from this spatial contradiction; living both within and without, simultaneously mirrors my ambivalence of many dualities. Behaving more male as opposed to being female, feeling natural rather than conditioned, repressed rather than expressed, being raw, wild and primitive rather than civilized, while allowing for some freedom whilst containing my emotions, yet punishing myself and my morality with these physical and mental tensions.
Now that I have conceptualised and come to understand my instinct to spatially contain my thoughts as a safe place to reflect from reality, I propose to approach my next lab space session to investigate my attraction to curtains that are faded and worn, looking through windows that are dirty and peeling, with suspended weights and winches that are rusty and threatening, in an attempt to understand how these physical realities reflect a liminal, coexistence of life and lifelessness and tragedy and triumph.
References:
Bracegirdle, C, ‘Beauty and the Beast: Client’s experience of counselling within a narrative framework, considering concepts of containment and freedom’, Degree Doctor of Philosophy Thesis, University of Hertfordshire, 2007
Drymalski, Dr A, ‘The Psychology and Value of Emotional Containment’, Posted on Jungstop.com, 2013
Krauss, R. E, ‘The originality of the avant-garde and other modernist myths’, MIT Press, 1985
Malynda Umland
20th April – 4th May
From the standpoint of a childless maternal identity, Malynda Umland explores the emotional conflicts around contemporary parenthood and the questions raised in dialogue centred around the problematic of when and if to have children. Her work focuses on addressing and working through the inner conflict resulting from decisions made in any direction and the emotional struggle that accompanies those decisions.
Umland used the LabPlus Project Space as a working studio to produce an empathy belly, to in turn wear as an embodiment of the maternal identity while making other work, predominantly the crocheting and unpicking of baby clothing and items for non-existent children.
Patrcia Ferguson
13th – 17th April
Eleni Zevgaridou
1-10th April
A Koinõnia of Minumental Figures
Staging I
Average people are worth a monument. In our own microcosmos, we all have a role, and the importance of that role could be read in so many ways. Ideally, everyone in the public, being unique and being an indispensable link in the universal human network reserves to have her monument/minument created. The sitters for this body of work come from this Institution. Students and staff are individuals that form a Koinõnia (society). Placing their figures in their working space, I want to increase the feeling of belonging and the perception that they have their footprint in this place, in other words enhance their commitment to the Institution hoping that they will feel appreciated and recognised.
I examine and demonstrate work in which hand made, minumental, representational, full body portraits of individuals are created. My investigation is about body language, how it expresses aspects of a personality and acts as a trigger of recognition equal to the face. By conducting variations of instalations within this institutional setting I search the interaction between agencies which might traditionally understood as artist, subject, viewer, participant, recipient, audience and object.
Elizabeth Wright
24-30 March
To find out more about Elizabeth’s time please visit her blog https://artistandshopgirl.wordpress.com/
LABPLUS RESIDENCY
From January 2014 to February 2015 LABPLUS paid host to 2 artist residencies, Chunmei Liu and Tao Zang, both from Beijing who each created works for 2 solo exhibitions at Project Space Plus.
LABPLUS 2
James Phailly, MA Fine Art
A Samhain Vigil-Thirtieth-First Oct(avia)ober,Under the scales of Libra:element,Aqua
The aesthetic intention of this artistic intervention was to create work both in the M.A project space and with a small collective, a halloween themed exhibition in one of our houses and two performances, one on the 30th to welcome in the pagan festival of Samhain and one on the 31st at the exhibition to celebrate an evening which is intrinsically archane and magical to me.
The work in the M.A project space has all been created by myself and comprises of a series of drawings, comprising of three A1 elaborate pencil drawings (of esoteric intent) and also prints of one of my fellow artists as an image of Medusa, complete with snake that have been drawn over with Sharpies in the form of elaborate arabesques,to transform the image into something otherworldly.
In the project space is also a large colour drawing, made of four sheets of A1 paper, put together to make a large creative space. The contents of my astral mind have been colourfully emptied onto the space in such a way that when encountered, elements of my esoteric ethos can be understood.
On the 30th a 20 minute performance was instigated and documented with a small audience in the project space. The performance comprised of chant, poetry and song and had the intention of being lighthearted and fun,had some really good feedback and was a success.
The work on the 31st was curated and exhibited by myself and three other final year BA students, Tess Allan, Aimee Burnett and Paul Stobbs. It was great to see three wildly diverging Fine Artists come together for the purpose of one exhibition, our practices worked really well together ranging form installation to performance and on the evening we perpetuated an unmitigated success with many guests and good feedback for all.
My performance on the 31st had the intention of being fitting to the invent, ethereal and a habitation of the inbetween spaces that can be tapped into during an evening such as “All Hallow’s Eve.”the set consisted of carefully chosen songs and chant and once again I had some great feedback and above all I think we had a lot of fun.
LABPLUS 1
Duncan Rowland, MA Fine Art
Reflections on David Bohm (1917-1992): The Implicate and Explicate
The Universe is an unbroken whole, implicate and explicate. This work shows a dynamic view of both. In the light of day, the unfolded order can be seen as a filtered representation of the camera’s input. By night, the reflections build and feedback to produce a pulsating view, collapsing time and space. Technology is foregrounded in this piece as something to be celebrated, rather than hidden away and feared.
all is flux
thought is non-thought
this programme doesn’t run,
even though I used the best butter.