Pecha Kucha Night, Dundee 08 Nov 2011

Tuesday night heralded the arrival of Pecha Kucha to Dundee! Creative Dundee hosted the event, with help from The Fleet Collective, allowing 11 speakers from various parts of the creative community to each give 20 slides worth of information to a receptive, 200-strong audience. The inaugural presentation was given by Philip Long, director of the V&A at Dundee project, swiftly spelling out the vision for the future of the project in 7 minutes! He was quickly followed by 10 other speakers, (with a quick beer break for good measure) all of whom rose to the challenge of a whirlwind style of speech which kept the audience on our toes. Along with the potential for black eyes, served up by the hugely engaging visual artist Louise Ritchie, and a fine performance from Vanilla Ink's Kate Pickering, Photographers, Game Designers, Animators and Eco Architects all took to the floor with gusto.
The night was finished off in style by Sink, a trio of musicians who improvised Balkan jazz stylee to slides they hadn't been allowed to see before the performance...a memorable performance!
The next installment is Feb 2012, so lets get booking...

Placement Symposium, FCA&C, Sat 05th Nov 2011

Last Saturday saw delegates attend the symposium event for the lastest FCA&C exhibition 'Placement' at the Gateway Building in St Andrews. The curators Lowri Davis and Dawn Youll gave an account of their reasons for choosing each artist featured in the show. Both artists themselves, their common thread throughout the exhibition was Laura Ford whose object 'In Rememberance' - a five legged donkey, looking decidedly woeful, appeared in both Part1 and Part2 of the exhibition.

My favourite works from both parts were 3 beautiful, haunting tree sculptures by Claire Curneen - terracotta coloured trunks with gilded branches reaching stright upwards, and roots pointing down, searching for somewhere to take root. Although she is better known for her strange, melancholy figures, the trees were chosen for their ability to hint at an 'imagined place', more in keeping with the theme of the exhibition.


Ken Eastman and Conor Wilson also spoke about their own practices and the day was rounded off with a panel discussion chaired by Dr Natasha Mayo, and some questions from the floor. The latter part became quite a lively debate concerning the current popularity of Grayson Perry and his potential to represent the ceramics community. Needless to say, there were some divergent viewpoints on the matter, all adding to what was overall an interesting and thought provoking day!

See http://www.fcac.co.uk/ for forthcoming video of the event and more information on the artists involved

New stock to Tayberry Gallery, Perth

Sarah at the Tayberry Gallery in Perth kindly asked if I'd like to provide any extra stock for this festive season, so I decided to get making before the PhD research kicks in properly. I sent it all off at the beginning of this week, so here are a few pics of some of the pieces (poor quality images notwithstanding!)

The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

I urge everyone to go to The British Museum to see the exhibition curated by Grayson Perry, the Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman. New objects by Perry alongside pieces chosen by the artist from the Museum's collections, create a series of journeys through the ages, filtered through Perry's own humourous take on the world. His work moves from impressive collaged ceramic behemoths, to fascinating cast iron characters, literally staggering under a wealth of historical and whimsical cultural allusions. And if you don't love Alan Measels by the time you're half way round the first four exhibits, then click on the link to his blog below...

http://alanmeasles.posterous.com/

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/grayson_perry/introduction.aspx

Trip to London

This weekend I ventured down south to visit friends and take in a few exhibitions. As I will soon be starting my PhD at DJCAD in exhibition practices for design, I thought I'd get started on some practical research! Not too much of a chore...

We visited the Postmodernism exhibition and the Power of Making at the V&A, both interesting in very different ways. I've just been reading Glen Adamson's blog excerpts on the planning stages of Postmodernism, and this has shed some fascinating light on the processes of such a large scale exhibition at an institution like the V&A.

See the link for more details, it's really worth a look, either before or after a visit to the exhibition itself.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/postmodernism/postmodernism-creating-the-exhibition/

Connections exhibition blog link

http://www.airconnections.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=220544011297409

Connections Exhibition - Dundee 9th June 2011

Its been a while since I've posted, but I've been busy working away for an exhibition that I'm organising with Holly Wilcox. It's going to feature some of our new work,produced during our year as artists in residence at DJCAD, along with work by the five Jewellery Department Artists in Residence at Glasgow School of Art. Come along to Neo Design, Whitehall Crescent, Dundee on Thursday night (9th June 5.30 - 7.30pm). We'll be there until Saturday only, so come and say hello!