- Venue
- Various venues across Somerset and Bath
- Starts
- Saturday, October 3, 2015
- Ends
- Saturday, October 17, 2015
- Address
- Somerset Art Works, The Town Hall, Bow Street, Langport, Somerset TA10 9PR
- Location
- South West England
- Organiser
- Somerset Art Works
Somerset Art Weeks is an annual countywide celebration of the variety and quality of contemporary visual art that can be found in Somerset. The Festival takes place every other year, alternating with the biannual Open Studios event.
More than 350 artists are taking part in this year’s Somerset Art Weeks Festival which will include art installations, exhibitions and events in village halls, shop windows, public gardens, barns, schools, community venues and over 116 venues across Somerset.
‘Momentum’ was chosen as the theme for this year’s Festival, to inspire the artistic journey for artists and audiences. Somerset is often referred to as the county you drive through to get somewhere else, so Somerset Art Weeks aims to highlight aspects of the county which people may not otherwise notice.
Festival highlights includes:
Past, Present and Future (venue 62) shows a selection of artists’ work and films commissioned by SAW Projects over the last ten years
Time and Place at Royal United Hospital (venue 61) showcases more than 100 work by SAW’s current members.
Gather-ing showcases contemporary craft: makers, skills, materials and thinking in the context of ‘Momentum’. Artists Stewart Easton, Jacky Oliver, Helen Snell, Gillian Widden have been commissioned to create new work in a Tythe Barn at Stoke-sub-Hamdon Priory (venue 35).
Simon Lee Dicker creates new work which is inspired by processes involved in the production of twine and the social impact of the twine industry on small rural communities. (Showing in West Coker venue 34)
Rebecca Moss will be investigating the use of ornamental and structural concrete in Bridgwater and Burnham on Sea. Her new work will link the mythological meaning of concrete ornaments and the significance of using concrete in sea defence. (Showing in Burnham-on-Sea. Venue 96)
Alice Maddicott will create a Car Boot Museum which will travel around Somerset in August. It will pop up on roadsides, in car parks, at the edge of a field perhaps or market squares. Inside the boot will be a collection of objects, text and images, created by Alice along with poet Ana Seferovic. (Showing in 44AD artspace, Bath. Venue 63)
Cavaliero Finn (venue 15), Flock Together (venue 12), Discovery Room and Dove Studios (venue 81) took part in creating professional development opportunities for emerging/graduate artists Beckie Upton, Laura Aish, Sandra James and Jenny Newbury.
Group show include Momentum at Musgrove Hospital (venue 8), Magic of Trees atContains Art (venue 110), Amazing Space at Dove Studios (venue 81), Sense of Place at Brean Down Fort (venue 95),Sensing the Landscape at National Garden Scheme’s gardens (Venue 9, 30, 91, 94 and 108), Step in Stone in Mendip (venue 60) and shiftWorks in Yeovil (venue 39).
This year’s Festival runs from 3 to 18 October. Full information, please visit www.somersetartworks.org.uk/artweeks15
