- Venue
- Rednile Projects Ltd
- Location
Three artists from Kangaroo Kourt, Bristol, and the three that make up rednile Projects, from Sunderland have collaborated on a two site project called ARTCAST. Each group visited the other's city and worked in the space there. The spaces were open to the public and short videos of activity were posted daily on YouTube.
I saw the work of Kangaroo Kourt in the rednile space prior to the finishing touches of the documentary video which is being edited, publicly, as I write this. It all goes on display on July 7th.
Some of the work on display is tentative and unfinished. That's part of the point, though. The artists wanted the public to feel they were watching creativity happen, with all its blind alleys, absurdity and speculation. Along with showing artist's work in progress, a theme of hidden spaces is explored. This response to this is less obvious, but on closer inspection some of the work does interrogate the idea of no-go areas, the unspoken or the hitherto unrecorded.
The Kangaroo Kourt pieces on show in Sunderland are three diverse works, reflecting the extremely loose nature of the Kangaroo Kourt set up.
Rebecca Swindell produced a series of nervous line drawings in a postcard format that drew a link between rednile's light industrial building (an old button factory, it turns out), and the place on Spike Island, Bristol where she normally works. Swindell appealed in the local press for ex-employees of the factory to get in touch and one – Shauna – did. Swindell then interviewed her about work and redundancy in the building. The stories, edited as a sound file, are comic and touching. It's easy to forget that not long ago all these art spaces were populated by dozens of people of all ages working together in family atmospheres – sometimes literally. Swindell mourns the passing of these communities in a humble and thoughtful way.
Hazel Hammond on the other hand interacts with her audience in a very different way. She is publicly knitting herself into a cocoon. This is adorned with large beads made from dough on which she asks people to write “something they want rid of”. The beads are then knitted into the cocoon making it rattle when it moves. When the piece is finished she will hang it up and it will all eventually rot away, troubles and all. I just hope the person who wanted to lose the collaboration between East 17 and Gabrielle is happy. Hammond continues this piece on a UK tour that runs until September. Visit her myspace at hazelcocoon for more information.
The third Bristolian piece was more in the way of a performance to open the space, which prior to this show has only been a studio and not a gallery. Hal Camplin, dressed as a badger, performed a song that drew on his walks around Sunderland (in the suit, I believe). Inscriptions from benches, signs and things overheard seemed to make up the lyrics. The badger suit didn't stop him being offered a job as a motor mechanic apparently. He also jumped into a paddling pool of polystyrene and gold petals. I don't really know why, but it seemed an important moment.
In conclusion, rednile Projects and Kangaroo Kourt have hosted a slightly shambolic, exploratory period of work that has the confidence to ask more questions than it answers, which is to be applauded.
Art should be about ideas, not smoke and mirrors. It would be sad if the use of multi-media and the construct of a twinning arrangement had obscured the art practice and product held within; happily that's not the case. Ideas don't always round themselves up neatly and the work that comes from such a ground ought to reflect that. By listening and responding to the world around them all the artists show an engagement with their immediate surroundings and, between them, raise issues regarding that environment.
http://www.rednile.org
http://www.kangarookourtart.com
Artist, arts administrator and writer. Check out http://www.bryaneccleshall.co.uk/
