I am currently at the beginning of a 14 month research and development project, within which I will be travelling around the North West of England and Scotland. I will be researching into Seaside Moderne architecture: buildings such as The Midland and The Blackpool Casino and Pleasure Beach that were built in the 1930s mid war leisure boom, and reference the futuristic streamlined forms of ocean liners. I will be documenting more detailed research findings from site visits, meetings with experts, locals and academics on my project blog https://lookingbackmovingforward2014.wordpress.com/. From this research, I will develop a new body of print, drawing based and sculptural work, which will be exhibited in a test bed exhibition at In Certain Places Project Space this September, and a solo exhibition at the Grundy Art Gallery in April 2016. I was so delighted to receive Arts Council England funding for the project, as well as financial support from Blackpool Council and UcLan.
At this stage there is a lot of planning, admin and organisation, even though I had a lot of tentative agreements before the funding was awarded. Over the next few months, I will be deep in the research stage, so I am scheduling in meetings with different experts, arranging access to certain buildings etc. So far, I have made initial research visits to The Midland Hotel, Blackpool Casino and Pleasure Beach, Fleetwood Coastguard Station and Bipsham Tram Stations. Tomorrow I am heading off to New Brighton Palace in the Wirral to have a look around the building.
This past week I also launched the project with a solo project, The Fair, at Glasgow Open House Art Festival. The Fair references the Glasgow Fair week when businesses and organisations closed, and everyone would travel ‘doon the water’ to Blackpool and Morecambe to escape everyday woes. I created a series of drawings postcard shaped forms, which explored architecture from Blackpool and Morecambe. I posted these to five artist’s homes, and they displayed them in their homes as they wished. At the weekend, I travelled round each of the venues, documenting them and meeting artists. All in all, with lots of tea and cake, it was a very sociable time, and much more relaxed than meeting people through the formality of the private view.
