Chris Simcox-airspace studio artist
Some things that Chris has been up to…
Architecture week "A Fuller Space"
This was an event that intended to demonstrate the need within town centres for use of space to be explored in different ways, whether it be shelters or some kind of seating area. To capture people's imagination about public space and the surrounding architecture and to open up other possiblities or ways of seeing the surrounding urban landscape. The project started by putting together Architects, engineers, Artists with a local youth group and to come up with ideas through the use of workshops and events to inspire the young group to come up with their own ideas and to actively engage with the project. After some plane sailing, and the scenario of getting to know who you are working with! We arranged a time table and a brief to work from, the first day we came together as a group to come up with some funny, fantastical and sometimes crazy ideas. As the weeks went by we all came up with the idea of a "chill out" space, based upon the shape of a football.. So it was the professional's turn to make the idea a reality, realizing we should make the architect on our team work and show his skills of design. The next stage was to construct the shape using a 'geo-dome' which is made up of pentagons, and hexagons. Some serious late nights followed using in the 'airspace' studios to build it. Using the dome we collaborated with the youth group to come up with some panels to attach upon the surface, different materials such as steel, grass, and clay to add an interactive element to the project. On the day we were unfortunate to have the worst summer's day you can imagine, but the work was brilliantly successful and the youth group certainly made it their own.
Harlech Bienale "Uncommon Ground" Five day residency involving artists from all over the world including Argentina, Spain, Israel and even England. The project was to have studio based artists who normally work and live in vibrant cities (Stoke-on-Trent)?? To come to Harlech which is an incredibly beautiful landscape of tree's, Mountains, Sand and sea to produce work and to place it in and around the landscape. My own perpective on this was to use and pick out the vast natural colour of Harlech and the surrounding landscape. I began by gathering scrap wood from which i could cut out circular shapes, and paint them with the intension of capturing colour and light to expose the natural beauty of the landscape.
