Rubbish

Deltiology, Blackpool

Museum of Contemporary Rubbish sent some postcards to Blackpool which are featured in a group show Deltiology at FYCreatives curated by Garth Gratix. A review is online here: http://www.altblackpool.co.uk/deltiology-at-fycreatives “…you can imagine the studio shot photographs of garbage as large format prints on the wall of a modern art museum.” Exhibition continues until 31 August.

Canadian Association of Geographers AGM Special Session: Waste and Indeterminancy

I have prepared a video presentation of a 20 minute paper to the Waste and Indeterminancy session at the CAG AGM in Newfoundland, Canada, 11-15 August 2013.

http://www.cag-acg.ca/en/cag_annual_meeting.html

In my paper I introduce the Museum of Contemporary Rubbish and the HOARD project and my current research on artists’ use of rubbish in their practices http://contemporaryrubbish.wordpress.com/

The special session organiser Josh Lepawsky has fed back already that he really likes the video and the themes and questions it raises and I’m keen to hear feedback from the event and any dialogue that might ensue with conference delegates. I won’t be attending the conference myself as my 5 month old boy Toby probably won’t appreciate the long haul flights so am pleased that they have made a special exception for me to submit my paper by video, which is essentially a slideshow with my voiceover as I would’ve presented at live at the conference.

I’ll probably upload to vimeo after the conference and share the link here.

Rejected Proposal

I took part in Rejected Proposal at Contemporary Six in Manchester, 12 – 29 July 2013, curated by Contents May Vary co-director Richard Shields http://christbanksartcoffeetables.blogspot.co.uk/2…

About the show: “Most of us have had a love of Art and a Broken Heart at some point and for many artists the two may have been one and the same. As funding sources become ever more strained and without the assistance of a wealthy patron, an artists practice can often result in a labor of love.Taking the common found experience of rejection in both terms of an artists career and relationships ‘Rejected Proposal’ asks 11 artists to create a miniature art works based on an art proposal they have had rejected in the past. The art works will be made in response to a jewellery box once hosting an engagement ring or other such token of loving commitment. These works can be miniature versions of the rejected art work or reinterpretations for their new host.”

Alice’s Rejected Proposal is a miniature version of a proposed series of readymade multiples to be individually trashed. The subjective act of defining an object as rubbish and negotiating the value of objects in specific contexts areongoing investigations. This miniature of the proposed edition is one variation of many potential configurations; a bespoke ‘gift’ for presentation purposes.

Performing Paper #7

I took part in Performing Paper #7 at Paper Gallery, Manchester, 22 June – 3 August 2013. http://www.paper-gallery.co.uk/

HOARD:PAPER

Alice Bradshaw collected every item of rubbish from her art practice during 2012 that would have otherwise been thrown away. In defining what is related to her practice as an artist, she kept the rubbish produced through activities such as the physical production of art objects, posting, transporting and exhibiting work, researching and visiting events and exhibitions. She also included in the collection the rubbish which is produced whilst undertaking these primary activities such as coffee drunk in the studio, wine drunk at meetings, tights laddered on art and detritus from medical circumstances impacting on her practice.

The HOARD documents one calendar year of Alice’s life in the form of the negatives of practice. Each object has a personal history and narrative connected to her practice and the various activities that comprise her artistic life. They are the offcuts, the misprints, the used and consumed and the watched, attended and discussed. Objects that do not appear in the HOARD include diaries, sketchbooks and notebooks, receipts needed for tax returns, books, materials that might by used for future works and any other objects considered to have potential use value. Objects which are considered works of art are also not included in the HOARD.

Each item of rubbish has been photographed and catalogued in chronological order (month by month) and analysed. A total of 745 items have been collected and processed in this way.

Paper objects form the majority of the collection and have been selected and curated for Performing Paper #7 at Paper Gallery, Manchester, 22 June – 3 August 2013.

My Curated Selection for Axisweb has now been published.

http://www.axisweb.org/atSelection.aspx?AID=2736

Selected artists:
Maurice Carlin
Jeannie Driver
Livia Garcia
Inguna Gremzde
Hilary Jack
Louise Winter

This Curated Selection focuses on artists’ use of rubbish/waste/discards in their practices. I am examining the various materials, processes and terminologies artists employ across disciplines in the context of related anthropological and socio-economic theories of rubbish.

Rubbish is a human construct: no object or material is intrinsically rubbish. The perception of what constitutes rubbish is constantly in a state of flux and dependent on varying cultural values. Human life produces waste that becomes a signifier, even a memento and souvenir of human experience. But waste is also subversive in its formless (informe) and chaotic manifestations, and represents disease and death. Waste is the dark and dirty, hidden or ignored, side of humanity and is also increasing exponentially. Industrialisation and consumerism have produced unprecedented quantities of rubbish and waste is now a major global ecological concern. Reduce, recycle, reuse are the mantras for a more sustainable and safe planet. However this is in fierce opposition to capitalism.

Artists use discarded objects and materials in their practices for various reasons: the availability and negligible cost of used commodities may be a pragmatic consideration, or the materiality of discards may be a primary concern, and using personal rubbish can bring an autobiographical dimension to the work. The found object (objet trouvé) is a common feature in historical and contemporary practice and can often be defined as rubbish, although not automatically synonymous with it. Rubbish has a certain degree of space and time specificity and artists can make use of these characteristics to draw upon or to create specific narratives.