Yesterday I visited my allotment which we will use for our residency. I found polaroid photographs scattered over the overgrown flowerbed. They show antique furniture: a desk, table, chests of drawers. How did they get there? Who took the photos and for what purpose? Perhaps they were a record to use in case of theft. Perhaps they themselves have been stolen and abandoned. I took some digital photographs to record the event. www.rozcran.co.uk
Roz Cran and I met as students on the BA Hons Fine Art (Printmaking) course at the University of Brighton, both graduating in 2003. After graduating, we each followed separate paths, with Roz eventually taking up a place at the RCA, while I embarked on an independent, mainly studio based practice. Our resulting experiences of the past three and a half years have been very different. Roz has been able to take full advantage of her MA studies within a prestigious institution with all of its associated networks and benefits. I have begun to build a professional infrastructure for myself, including the founding of a shared artists’ workspace, Blue Monkey Studio in Eastbourne, along with 3 other graduates.
Roz recently took up a workspace at Blue Monkey Studio and we have been able to renew our working relationship. We are keen to take this opportunity to spend some time developing our practices collaboratively, seeing it as a chance to introduce fresh elements to our work and to test out collaborative ideas, exploring the possibilities for developing new work in a speculative, stimulating and creative environment. We are both very open to experimentation and see our practices as investigative and exploratory. We are going to develop ideas for a residency on an allotment where we can set experimental processes in motion in what we both consider to be a productive environment.
