Coventry ArtSpace Blog November 2020

What have I done in November? I’ve been busy developing artworks and I’ve rewritten schemes for my exhibition at Arcadia Gallery several times! 

I’m planning to have something of my exhibition available to be seen and experienced in an engaging way whatever version of lockdown Coventry faces. Which is an absorbing task, and makes me feel particularly vulnerable because, like so many parents, my child’s class could suddenly need to isolate meaning that I will be trapped at home. So far, we’ve only had negative test results and got back to (Covid) normality quickly, but this could hit us at any point and means organising for things to happen in a variety of ways as well as needing plan for other people able to experience my work safely. 

Image: From experiments with montaged intaglio prints of litter finds and AR

The good thing about all of this – and there is always a silver lining if you look hard enough – is that it has pushed me to develop art in ways that I’ve always wanted to, using augmented reality and geolocation technology, which I would probably have otherwise continued to procrastinate about. 

So I’m not going to go into too much detail about what these are here, as I will be writing in more detail about that in a blog, later this month, in the run up to the exhibition, and in an artist’s talk with ArtSpace in January 7th. However, I am posting fairly regularly all the time on Instagram. You can follow me there @anatomyofasmile. My exhibition is on at Arcadia 26 Jan – 7 Feb 2021.

 

November has also been marked by projects put on hold over lockdown starting to move again which has been heartening. 

I’ve been exploring Naul’s Mill Park with Coventry artist and producer Tara Rutledge, with whom I had so many plans brought to a distressingly abrupt halt back in March. We discussed how the space can be used now and improved in the future by art and imagining how we can to use sound here and elsewhere to bring spaces alive multi-dimensionally and safely in our uniquely-distanced current times.

 

Of course, the coronavirus dominates conversations as it does everything. But in talks with other artists I find that the tone more often takes a positive turn when we wonder about the future and seek to draw lessons to create positive actions and ways to move on with each other. This is despite all the restrictions we face.

Image: Culverted stream running under Naul's Mill Park. Those ripples!

We know plans will continue to develop as we move slowly out of this period, dominated by isolation and worry, into another phase that will happen against a background of, quite possibly, scarcity and therefore precariousness, but also of joy at being able to open up. 

I frequently wonder if it is possible to ever achieve the plans I had before lockdown, but people are giving energy to spaces and places and ideas that they don’t normally have the time to and that feels like an interesting time in which to make art.