hannah turner wallis

My next step was to show my previous piece in a different light. Along with three fellow students I exhibited in the Playroom of The Playhouse Bar, in the centre of Norwich. The idea of this exhibition was to showcase a series of development works from our current practice to allow for experimentation with exhibiting. To this end, Never Lost became Never Lost II. When thinking in advance about what I should show in this exhibition I noticed that the Playroom had a lovely wide window from floor to ceiling looking onto the street. I liked the idea that the embroidery pieces from my walks might hang in the window looking out at a part of the journey it originated from. The lighting of course was very exciting as the circles contain as much negative space as positive space for light to stream through.

The second main event before Christmas was another exhibition that I was part of. Again it took place at Stew Gallery but this time was a showcase of an even broader spectrum of work from across the courses at NUCA. It was named Draw and was initiated by fellow Fine Artist Josh Worrall. There was little restriction as to the medium implied by the word and so the range of practice was really quite eclectic and inspiring.

The piece I exhibited was another embroidery piece, this time taken from a city walk with collaborator Holly Stubbings. The walk itself was part of a much bigger project that I will explain later but presented itself in this case as a chance to test my experimentation in embroidery in terms of colour and structure. The basic idea of the walk was to try and get lost in the city of Norwich. Again conversation was very important and we freed ourselves from time restrictions following only a hand drawn map from Holly. Alas it seemed impossible to get lost, although we were temporarily so at times we generally had some notion of where we were. And so the piece is titled Never Lost.

I decided to separate the piece into a series of five hoops. I used embroidery rings to create a sense of restriction but only partially so, as the embroidery as a symbol of memory and map lines inevitably is limitless. The separation was mainly to allow experimentation with colour to be accentuated, following loosely the stages of the fading light as we walked.

It was important that this piece be displayed carefully, as it was to be suspended from lengths of thread. This allows the fragility of the remnants of my memory and of the performance to be emphasised. Thus they were hung from the ceiling spaced apart across the length of the gallery wall but slightly away from it. As the hoops slowly span and danced shadows across the wall of varying lengths depending on their distance from the wall, they created an illusion of movement.

This movement became the most important part I took away from this exhibition. I loved the fact that it stopped my work from becoming static, important because of the performance of walking it originates from.

So to go back to November, I was part of an all female exhibition (for which there is a poster below somewhere) named Melange. There was a brilliant showcase of selected works across a varied set of mediums.

This exhibition was the first chance I had to display some of the embroidery work I had begun to experiment with back in October. 

My piece was called From Feet to Air, and is taken from a 13 mile walk I went on with my father in the summer. We walked along the Wherryman’s Way, starting in Great Yarmouth and ending in a little town I forget the name of right now.

It was a glorious although rather windy day and I saw some beautiful sights. It was also a wonderful chance to talk to my father, to build a conversation of such length and depth I hardly have the pleasure of encountering with him now I have moved away from home.

The idea behind my embroidery was to create an outcome from the performance of my walk in a very tactile way. The tangibility of the walk can never be fully represented with documentation but the time and sense of journey become semblant through the act of sewing the lines of the map over and over. The effect creates a somewhat chaotic version of my memory of the walk but expresses the physical possibilities of expanse and the disorderly nature of the natural landscape.

The colours of course are important here and represent the qualities of the weather and the range from the ground up to the sky.

By re-creating the walk in this way I have found a form of mapping that allows me to express the temporal qualities of walking as a performance as a physical and quite beautiful manifestation.

natalieannebell:

Over the Easter holidays (31st March- 10th April)  NUCA are giving the general public the chance to see what goes on behind the scenes. The exhibition showcases the courses available at Norwich University College of the Arts with tutors and students present to talk to. Free activities held during the day range from a Zoetrope workshop to designing your own typeface.

Photos thanks to Gemma Melton - Visit her blog HERE 

Retrospect Rehersal: As part of Test Preenrol  Jenny Dunseath (Norwich University College of the Arts - Senior Lecturer)

Last week I took part in a two week long exhibition at uni, showcasing the work of Fine Art tutors. These photos are of an installation/performance from Jenny Dunseath called Retrospect Rehersal, in which several students (myself included) were a main part of the work. The piece is an inflatable structure from a previous exhibition that is erected using a fan for about 60 seconds. The structure itself used to have two main parts, one of which is now redundant and un-inflatable.

The role of the students that took part was to inflate the structure and then wait for it to deflate, being mindful of the passage of students walking around the uni as usual, before putting it back in it’s box. The idea behind this was the passing on of information (about how to inflate and deflate the structure) from one group of participants to the next almost like chinese whispers. The inevitable mutation of information as it is passed on allows for the act to differ ever so slightly each time it is completed.

This piece explores the passage of time and creates the sensation that the viewer has missed something as the inflation is rarely seen, leaving only the deflation to be experienced.

I took part in this three times on different days with different people, the first of which took place at the PV of the exhibition between 5 and 6pm. All subsequent performances took place between 12:30 and 1:30pm.

rozanes:

ReCraft Your Paper: Paper Cuts by Peter Callesen

“A4”…It is probably the most common and consumed media used for carrying information today. According to Peter, this is why we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper. By taking away all the information and starting from scratch using the blank white A4 paper sheet, he feels He has found a material that we are all able to relate to, and at the same time the A4 paper sheet is neutral and open to fill with different meaning.
Displayed on Recraft |  Follow us on Facebook | Twitter

So I am currently trying to finish off my draft reseach report, a compulsory element of any degree undertaken, and have been thinking about how I can use it to my own advantage. My practice is these days is becoming more and more about the act of performance, but I use the term loosely. I do not necessarily mean the kind of performance where there is an actor and a stage and an audience, I am more intersted in the notion of what that one word can encompass. My art centres around the physical act of walking, but also around the act of curating; is it possible that I can call both these practices a performance? And if so can I not apply the same idea to my report? Can I not use the A4 piece of paper as Callesen has done above to turn my written report into a performance of it’s own? I suppose all I can do is try.

(via rozanes-deactivated20120207)