We Came Here
For the second annual commission and exhibition at south London’s Van Gogh House, a-n member Harold Offeh has created an immersive sound and sculptural installation that considers migrant narratives past and present.
Reflecting ideas of place and lived history, We Came Here also includes a performative work in which young people with lived experience of migration welcome visitors into the gallery – Vincent Van Gogh’s former home in Stockwell, where he lived as a 20 year old.
Running through Offeh’s artworks are historical narratives drawn from archival research of individual migrants, groups and organisations who came to live in Stockwell and other areas of London. Finding a relationship with the idea of Van Gogh as a migrant to London himself, these stories exist in a continuum and across generations, alongside the experiences of young migrants arriving to London today.
8 September – 18 December 2022, Van Gogh House, London www.vangoghhouse.co.uk/
British Glass Biennale 2022
Part of the International Festival of Glass, which takes place in venues in and around Stourbridge and Wolverhampton, this exhibition presents works in glass by 103 artists selected by open call.
Several a-n members have work on display, including Ghanaian-born, Sunderland-based Anthony Amoako-Attah. He combines screen-printed glass powders and enamels with waterjet cutting and kiln forming to create pieces that initially appear to be textiles, based on the detailed patterns of Ghanaian kente cloth.
Among the other a-n members who take part are Sheffield-based Juliet Forrest, who works with stained and fused glass; Manchester-based Ian Chadwick, whose symmetrically patterned pieces are reminiscent of op-art; and Verity Pulford, based in rural North Wales, whose work is inspired by the intricate organic forms of algae, fungi, moss and ferns.
Until 1 October 2022, Ruskin Glass Centre, Stourbridge www.glassbiennale.org
Herefordshire Art Week
Celebrating its 20th year of promoting artists and craftspeople working in Herefordshire, this art trail includes open studios and exhibitions across 130 venues.
Among numerous a-n members taking part is artist Veronika Lavey, who specialises in self-portrait photography that ‘holds up a metaphorical mirror to show the darker places in life’. For sale in her studio are limited edition prints, self-published books and mixed media pieces.
Painter and a-n member Nick Holmes’ exhibits work that draws on the materials of popular culture and art history, while ceramicist Mary Kenny opens the doors of her workshop to showcase tactile pots that combine techniques of naked raku with low fired glazes and smoke firing.
3-11 September 2022, venues across Herefordshire www.h-art.org.uk/
Craft Sustained
a-n members are among the 19 artists, designers and craftspeople included in this exhibition of works made using renewable natural resources.
‘Craft Sustained’ showcases furniture, clothing, accessories, architectural materials, ceramics and sculptural objects created from a range of sustainable and ethical materials such as fungi, bacteria, yeast, and waste from food production and industry.
Sheffield-based a-n member Rachael Colley explores ideas of consumption through an interdisciplinary practice that includes making cutlery, jewellery and sculpture. Treating food waste as a luxury material, ‘her jewellery questions traditional notions of preciousness and value’.
Meanwhile, London-based Ella Bulley makes work between art, textiles, product and set design in a practice that combines research, material and artisan techniques. Among her works on display in ‘Craft Sustained’ are objects from the series Saccharum, which explores the materiality of sugarcane.
Until 6 November 2022, The Hub, Sleaford www.hub-sleaford.org.uk/
The Art of Cutting Carbon
Liverpool-based a-n member Gina Czarnecki presents a new sculpture alongside artists Simon Bingle, Kedisha Coakley, Gina Czarnecki, and John Jostins in this exhibition curated by BBC Energy and Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin.
Collectively the works highlight the vast quantities of CO2 produced by manufacturing five everyday materials: steel, concrete, cardboard, aluminum, and the youngest material on display, plastic.
Czarnecki’s sculpture Child Born of Oil, is made from recyclable plastic and depicts a figure, taller than an adult, with hands tied behind its back and emerging from a shadow of black oil. Her wider trans-disciplinary practice is concerned with human form and function, technological development, and intertwined histories of medicine, myth and ethics.
The exhibition and the research that led to it is the subject of a BBC documentary, The Art of Cutting Carbon.
Ongoing, Eden Project, Cornwall www.edenproject.com/things-to-do/the-art-of-cutting-carbon
The Fool
‘When reality can be bleak, the artist can be a welcome symbol of hope, imagination and cosmic possibility’. This multi-media group exhibition at AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, brings together the works of seven artists to explore ideas of ‘fooling’, unpicking some of the ways that The Fool has traditionally taken up a position in our society. The show then offers space for reflection on the role of the fool today.
Featuring work by a-n members including Rosie McGinn, Ben Sadler, Joanna Whittle, Anna Francis and Rebecca Davies, plus Joe Learmonth and Huge Sillytoe, the show aims to be a space of ‘respite from the dark times. We will always need the fool, to make us laugh, to make us sing, to make us think’.
Throughout the run of ‘The Fool’ we will be delivering a series of public activities, taking the core underlying principles of the exhibition as a starting point and working outwards to explore the relevance of the fool and foolishness in today’s society. This includes Artist Soup Kitchen, which explores support networks, good practice and sustainability of the arts and artists in an ever
changing and challenging world.
Until 25 September 2022, AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent https://www.airspacegallery.org
Top image: Harold Offeh, We Came Here, 2022
