Family day out today joined by stepgrandaughter and her mum and dad, their dog and our dog. I am trying to take better photos whether ‘snapshots’ on days like these or documentation photos of work and/or projects.
So, having finally manged to get to the studio again yesterday I rephotographed two small drawings.
Well I have finally got my own Twitter account, not just the DAD one so I can do some slightly more personal tweets relating to my studio practice. It’s @ClareGSmith but I haven’t done much tweeting yet.
Here are links to two interesting a-n blogs covering SOTA12.
Emily Speed’s blog: www.a-n.co.uk/p/1688798
Alice Bradshaw’s blog: www.a-n.co.uk/p/2018190
Sota12 is receding into the past now! I spent the day knitting, taking photos and nattering as a participant in DAD’s Bunting Forever project http://www.dadonline.eu/node/362. It was pretty tiring, which seems ridiculous, so I was glad when my partner suggested fish and chips for dinner. No cooking – yipee.
Cooking is, though, a wonderful and creative thing. I went to a friend’s funeral yesterday. She was a great cook, a generous person both in size and in personality, much loved and instantly liked by all who met her. She leaves a big hole here in Dover. After the funeral nearly everyone went back to her place where there was a very fitting tribute laid on in the form of a delicious spread, including some very tasty sausages.
This article in the New Statesman sums up sota12 pretty well: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/cultural-capital…
The networking was good; the debates less so. What weren’t they saying about the cuts to come?
Having picked out my highlights as Kirsty Ware and David Edgar, the low point was the Arlene Philips interview. I couldn’t work out if she knew what art was: at times it was entertainment and at others it wasn’t; and she never answered the question which was “Does TV do great art?” or was that bad art?
I thought I should write a more upbeat assessment of sota12 – only because reading yesterday’s post really does reflect the fact that I was really tired after it. Sore feet throughout the day really didn’t help.
So, I really did enjoy catching up with friends and contacts and meeting new people. I had lots of interesting conversations and took away the following:
1) After seeing the list of names of everyone involved in the Anne Wilson’s Local Industry (cloth) project at the Whitworth as part of the Cotton Global Threads http://cottonglobalthreads.com/ I realise I need to get all the names or as many names as possible of the participants in DAD’s bunting forever project. I think we’ve had 200 people involved and I have listed 20 names since getting back and am on the hunt for the rest. I also need to film different parts of the process! I know all this but have been a bit behind the curve on this one.
2) Enjoyed watching Air Pressure http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/whatson/exhi…, also at the Whitworth
3) Enjoyed An evening with Robert Wilson http://www.pmstudio.co.uk/events/mon-13022012-600p… and his ideas around non-verbal communication. Exchanged notes with Stephanie Fuller – we both wondered about the nature of the collaboration with the deaf-mute boy he worked with.
4) Spoke to Nancy Groves from the Guardian and actually got a mention in the blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/culture-cuts-blog… which is very exciting.
5) Had a good conversation with Dr Xerxes Mazda, Head of Learning and Audiences at The British Museum, and learnt alot from his presentation at the Artists and Audiences breakout session. Am still thinking about his question, which sort of goes like this “Does it matter if someone came to an exhibition to learn more about a topic and saw some great art at the same time but didn’t know it was art?”
6) Need to have subtitle option for moving image work to make it fully accessible.
Clare Smith's mixed English/Chinese heritage informs her perspective on issues of identity and categorisation. Her nomadic childhood and early adulthood have meant a somewhat ambivalent relationship to place, reinforced by the sense of ambiguity that comes from her mixed identity. Smith works with drawing, print media, collage and moving image to investigate this ambivalence, with references to craft, the importance of labour and the handmade. Through her choice of materials and approaches, she creates work which attempts to create a sense of unity, an interpretation of Homi Bhabha's "Third Space" - seen as a space in which different parts can come together to challenge dominant ideas of wholeness. Collaboration is part of Smith’s practice and she is also co-founder of Dover Arts Development (DAD) together with painter, Joanna Jones. This involves working with many different artists, curation, organisation, event management, creating networks across East Kent and influencing the public realm in Dover. Clare works from a studio in Dover. She has an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and has exhibited nationally and internationally.
