COMMISSIONS, RESIDENCIES & PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Many Hands Commissioned Installation piece for the old bell ringing tower, St.Mary's Church, Barton-upon-Humber. Polaroid images were taken of the hands of local stall holders and customers at the farmer's market who then wrote one word or phrase describing the most significant thing their hands had done or felt that week. This was super-imposed with the hand, printed onto acetate, and hung in a spiral form from the top centre of the atrium. |
See Me, Fee Me
Workhops commissioned by Xceptional Productions for their Managing a Masterpiece project. Working with people with visual impairment at Ferriers Barn near Bures, a sensory production of one of Constable's famous paintings was created. The Constable painting was routed into a large piece of plywood and described to the participants who then 'felt' their chosen material/medium with which to interpret the scene. Back in the workshop I worked with artist and engineer, Pete Rogers, to finish the artwork and make it safe and durable. The piece was later exhibited at St. Peter's Church as pat of a larger Open Art exhibition, and goggles to mimic different forms of degenerative eyesight were offered to visitors in order to engage more 'authentically' with the piece. Top left: Me, Néo, working with one of the participants Top right: a participant working with concentration Bottom left: Participant, Ryan, admiring his work in the gallery Bottom right: A visitor to the exhibition enjoying the piece, assisted by her guide dog Photo credits: Alex Hallowes from Xceptional Productions |
Light Night
Commissioned by Xceptional Productions, as part of their overall Managing a Masterpiece initiative, to project manage LightNight! a festival designed to bring light to the darker days of late winter: www.xceptionalproductions.moonfruit.com/light-night/4574848142 Photo credits: Alex Hallowes from Xceptional Productions |
time'lines
Project Manager for a major public art project designed to engage the community through the transitional phases while commissioning major public artworks permanently sited along a disused railway track, now a multi-user surfaced route-way, originally used for taking miners to the pits. An Arts Council England funded project with Amber Valley Borough Council, Ripley, Derbyshire, Derbyshire County Council and Groundwork Trust. timelines.weebly.com/index.html?fbclid=IwAR3AmYkAUr_19rE8K6NZEfMbo_aqFxjfhHMuvXIQ0RoZ0iw1e8FN4i5QlY8 |
Crazy Daisies; Red Hot Chillies: Artist-in-residence at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo I decided that I wanted to ‘play’ with my memories, with trickster stories, with the sights, smells and sounds of Bulawayo, with ideas about ‘ownership’ of people and land, and with themes addressing survival within nature. Using notions around trickster inversions, I set about questioning my African-ness, looking also at skin boundaries (the trickster being the ‘God of boundaries’) and barriers, skin as identity, and skin as a metaphorical site of change and transformation (between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’, ‘personal’ and ‘collective,’ boundaries and identities). Using the Art Gallery as a ‘safety net’ for these ideas I created an installation that called on all of the senses to stimulate and provoke thoughts, ideas and feelings about our place in the world and in nature.. |
McMillan Nursery :
Creative Practitioner Residency McMillan Nursery School, Hull, a Creative Partnership and Forest School, required a person skilled in publishing and documentation skills. As the Creative Partnership government initiative was coming to an end I worked with the whole school and families to produce documentation that would ensure sustainable skills and documentation to continue to promote the work of this outstanding nursery school. The work culminated in the production of a book, The McMillan ABC. The 100 letters of the Alphabet (image right; available from the McMillan Nursery School on www.blurb.com/b/2526954-the-mcmillan-abc-the-100-letters-of-the-alphabet-m), a number of postcards, and skills with which to produce their own publicity material. |
Around Southwark
Commissioned permanently sited piece for the mental health wing of Guy's Hospital, London. Mental health service users from Lewisham took part in photography workshops with myself and another artist. I then took the images, printed them onto acetate and over-layered them to produce a series of semi-translucent images. |
Tricks of the Trade
Research Consultant/ Artist in Residence As a result of research I had undertaken as a practising artist and art theorist on the theme of the trickster as archetype, I was approached by the Centre for New Ethnicities Research at the University of East London to contribute to the Pilot Teaching Pack for the Tricks of the Trade project that they were in the process of producing. In this pack the CNER were using the trickster theme to find ways and means of addressing race, difference and identity within a multicultural classroom, for use both here in Great Britain and abroad. Further to the initial work as research consultant, I was then invited, as artist-in-residence, to work with three schools, Eastlea, Brampton Manor and St. Angela’s, in the East End of London. I worked with the schools for approximately six months in order to support, encourage and enable the art teachers to use the teaching pack to its full potential. This process also enabled everyone involved to gauge how ‘user friendly’ the teaching pack was at this stage. At the end of the school year I then curated an exhibition of the works at the Greengate Gallery, University of East London, Plaistow, which was opened by cultural theorist Stuart Hall. https://philcohenworks.com/tricks-of-the-trade-issues-in-multicultural-education/ . |