- Venue
- The Space. 58 Kings Road
- Location
- South East England
Pulling into St Leonards Warrior Square railway station on Saturday night, I caught sight of the flicker of video projections in a nearby open space, marking the beginning of the evening programme of works at the FAÇADE exhibition.
FAÇADE is an art project concerned with artists’ responses to public spaces in and around St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex. Conceived and managed by artist Sharon Haward to produce “site-based responses to the architecture, history and function of local buildings and spaces”. Support was given by Arts Council England, Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, Hastings Borough Council, Retail Vitality and Dover Town Council.
The larger project sees Haward leading photo tours of St Leonards, in which local people explore the local area, taking photographs along the way and archiving the documentation in local bar The Rooms and Hastings Museum and Art Gallery. The second part of the project, and the part I will concentrate on here, is a group exhibition of new works made in response to the local area and in particular to the open space in which the final project is situated.
The location is a fenced-off empty lot close to St Leonards Warrior Square railway station. A group of 7 artists had access to the site to develop original works over several weeks. The result is a varied installation of sculptural and text works and two evening events during which projected video works, sound pieces and movement take place. Drinks and warm-up space was provided by neighbouring gallery Gill. It was the first of these live events that I visited.
Haward had made 3 wooden freestanding structures, like skeleton frames of buildings. She had been inspired by the outlines of former buildings that stood in and around the exhibition space: the Regal Cinema on London Road, the Post Office Sorting Office in Kings Road. Shapes resurrected.
The eight-metre tall gable end wall was used as a projection screen. Videos included works with accompanying soundtracks by Haward, repetitive in their form, these worked well alongside static pieces in the space. Footage shot by the artist from a moving car exposed the decorative architecture of St Leonards. A second projector shone film onto a muslin screen, attached to one of Haward’s structures.
Evening strollers along the Prom have reported hearing an orchestra playing as they pass the site of the former St Leonards Pier. Interested in this Urban myth, Haward developed her soundwork ‘St.Leonards Ghost Orchestra’, played at intervals.
A larger than life grey-felt dog was chained near the entrance. This was the work of artist Roz Cran. Interested in the colour of this disused space – grey: concrete, gravel, plaster, fencing she began by writing phrases related to the colour on the walls in chalk. Later on in her process the watchdog character emerged. Cran sat on a grey chair placed next to the urban dog and also continued to write ‘grey phrases’ on the wall as a low key performance piece. When vacated the chair seemed to invite visitors to sit and keep watch.
A 10 minute ‘video poem’ by Sarah Broome held the audience’s attention. Footage of the sea front and seaside architecture played out against a spoken first person narrative, describing a brief holiday romance. Broome’s delicate text at times broke into song.
Yumino Seki’s movement piece concluded the event. A mobile light followed her dance, which began slowly in the centre of the space. Seki improvised around the static pieces including Christine Gist’s glass and mirror arrangements which were scattered around the space in various collections. Seki circled Nathan Burr’s Bluebird toffee tin birdfeeder, tripped amongst the floor level pieces, threw handfuls of gravel at the wall of projections and climbed through one of Haward’s sculptures. The live presence ‘wove together’ various pieces, putting them into a certain order, allowing us to consider them against each other. It also worked to literally ‘shine a light’ on many of the works.
The collection of videos animated the dark space. A visitor to both the open afternoon and the evening event commented: “In daytime the exhibition seemed overshadowed by the tall surroundings; at night, with sound, light and projections it made its presence felt.”
On Saturday 13th March the space will be open to the public from 12.00-3.00 and an evening of projections and performances will take place at 7.00 pm lasting approx 40 minutes.
The group will then develop the second stage of the FAÇADE project in Dover on a huge empty coach park in April.
07/03/10
Lucy Cran
FAÇADE Art in Public Spaces Facebook Group;
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=158632792262
