We are now five days into our residency programme, which is already turning out to be incredibly exciting and varied.
Ben Jeans Houghton was in residence with his project, ‘Memory Map’, between Thursday 5th and Saturday 7th. We recieved loads of great feeback from visitors and a very decent turnout for his private view on the Saturday evening. Over the course of three days Ben drew a map of Newcastle from memory on large sheets of paper spread over the gallery floor. For the evening of the 7th the map was pinned to a wall and viewers were encouraged to type out personal memories evoked by places on the map on a typewriter and literally attach their memories to these places with pieces of red wool and pins. Some of the red wool linked high up to the opposite wall, where a series of almost identical self portrait photos of Ben thinking about his own memories were placed. It was good to see such an effective use of the space, and a great start to the Residency programme.
Currently three artists – Joanna Garlick, Sarah McMahon and Kate Liston – are collaborating on a project involving wallpaper, henna tattoos and many many cups of tea. Once again the space is turning into something quite unexpected and we’ll be looking forward to seeing what they’ve come up with by the end of their stay tomorrow evening.
Next up on the 11th will be Abigail Cooper. Abigail will use an abundance of mass-produced objects to create an installation that consumes the gallery space. The audience is invited to view the artist at work, repetitively and meditatively assembling everyday objects.
Please see the website www.gluegroup.org.uk for other upcoming residency information. For more images we have a photobucket account which you can view at http://s210.photobucket.com/albums/bb66/gluegroup/
Each residency will be carefully documented, and we’re planning to present this documentation at a night of art and music at the Cumberland Arms booked for the 29th – shortly after our HORSE_GLUE sound art festival at Echo Bar on the 24th. Its going to be a delightfully chaotic month!
GG Mark
