Turf Projects has won Artquest’s 2017 Workweek Prize for presenting Saelia Aparicio Torinos’ exhibition ‘Peaks & Troughs‘ during Art Licks Weekend. The prize is awarded annually by Artquest in association with the Art Licks festival to one of the participating projects for risk-taking and critical work, with the prize money, this year of £1,000, shared between the organiser and the artist.
The first entirely artist-run art space in Croydon, Turf Projects was set up in 2013 and initially produced publicly-sited and pop-up projects before gaining its own space, comprising a gallery and affordable studios.
Exploring ideas around regeneration, change and social and environmental inequality, Saelia Aparicio Torinos creates large-scale drawings on walls and modifies found objects for her installations. The poetic prose of the statement about the exhibition sees the artist imagining herself within these contested sites, now largely uninhabited and left to fall into disrepair. The location of Turf Projects within a shopping centre that is positioned for redevelopment is also a point of reference.
Workweek Prize 2017 guest judge Rosie Stanbury, who is acting head of public programmes at Wellcome Collection, visited Turf Projects over the course of the weekend along with four other shortlisted projects: Your Friendly Local by Nora Silva at Chalton Gallery, Rising by Pale Blue Dot Collective at St John’s On Bethnal Green Church, Two Places at Once by POST Artists at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and online, and The Show Home at The Old Police Station.
Artquest developed the Workweek Prize in 2013, alongside the inaugural Art Licks Weekend. Each year projects by artist-led spaces and emerging curators are pre-shortlisted and a winner picked based on the success of their exhibition, risk-taking, critical awareness and engagement of a non-traditional art-going public. Last year’s winner was artist Laura Malacart with curators Louisa Bailey and Joyce Cronin of Finishing Touch (now The Bower).
Peaks & Troughs continues at Turf Projects until 12 November 2017
Images:
1. Saelia Aparicio Torinos, Installation shot of ‘Peaks & Troughs’, 2017. Courtesy: Turf Projects
2. Saelia Aparicio Torinos; collaboration with Attua Aparicio from
Silo Studio, Anatomy of Pleasure, 2017. Courtesy: Turf Projects
3. Saelia Aparicio Torinos, Installation image from the exhibition ‘Peaks
& Troughs’, 2017. Photographer: Tim Bowditch, Courtesy: Turf Projects
More on a-n.co.uk:
Art Licks Weekend 2017: finding solutions through artist-led activity
Frieze Week 2017: art fairs and events in London
Turner Prize 2017 exhibition: exciting artists shine in a cleverly curated show
