An exhibition of new video works and drawings by collaborative duo John Wood and Paul Harrison launches this year’s Site Festival in Stroud.
Curated by festival host Stroud Valleys Artspace (SVA), In Some Film opens on 10 May and runs across two venues – the Brunel Goods Shed and SVA’s newly refurbished John Street exhibition space. Works use devices such as repetition and super slow motion to expand generic cinematic moments – a car bomb exploding, an assassination, a forest fire burning – and challenge conventions of spectacle and drama.
Other visual arts highlights include ArteFact or Fiction, an intervention in Stroud’s Museum in the Park by sculptors Paul Grellier and Ann-Margreth Bohl; Tide Marks, an exhibition of textile works by Alice Fox exploring the artist’s creative relationship with the shoreline; and Navigable Waters, an evening of open discussion with artists Emily Joy, Ralph Hoyte, Colin Higginson and Simon Ryder, who are currently making works for the Canal and River Trust offices in Gloucester in response to inland waterways.
The annual SVA Open Studios is another festival highlight. This year, artists in Stroud and across the Cotsworld countryside are collaborating with writers and poets in their studios, workshops or homes for the two weekends of the event. An Open Studios Taster Exhibition opens in The Subscription Rooms on 3 May.
Site Festival, a festival of artist-led projects, runs 1-31 May across various venues in Stroud, Gloucestershire. www.sitefestival.org.uk
More on a-n.co.uk:
Stroud Valleys Artspace – 2004 profile by Paul Glinkowski
Studios – profiles of numerous group studio set ups at different stages of development, plus The studios toolkit, designed especially for artists thinking of setting up workspace facilities.
