Report submitted

The final day of my exhibition THEMSELVES HERE TOGETHER at The Word marked the end of my project, Voices: Within and Without. This year long project has been supported by Arts Council England. 

I have been working on the end of project evaluation report and have been reflecting on the various aspects of the project. It has been a really productive and rewarding year, and I look forward to following up all the interesting and exciting things that have emerged as a result.

Here is a reminder of some of the outcomes from my Voices: Within and Without project.

Spoken Word Residency at Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Canada

Everything Will Be Alright sound installation at Cheeseburn

Portion Control publication exhibited as part of REALITY CHECK at The NewBridge Project: Gateshead

A lot can happen in a  performance workshop at TURF, London

THEMSELVES HERE TOGETHER performance at The Word, South Shields

THEMSELVES HERE TOGETHER audio-visual installation at The Word, South Shields

I would like to thank all the project partners and people involved in my project.

Plus huge thanks to Arts Council England for supporting me

Portion Control for sale in NewBridge Books at BALTIC 39

I am pleased to be selling my latest publication, Portion Control, at NewBridge Books, located on the ground floor of BALTIC 39.

Get your copy now for only £5

Reality Check exhibition - Corridor 8 Review by Elisabetta Fabrizi

The NewBridge Project has expanded and set up a new home in Gateshead. Right in the High Street, The NewBridge Project : Gateshead houses a gallery, studio spaces for artists and The Collective Studio, a new ambitious graduate development programme created in collaboration with Newcastle University and the Institute of Creative Practice.

Reality Check, the inaugural exhibition, brings together works by eight early-career artists, resulting from The NewBridge Project’s 2016-2017 Graduate Programme in partnership with Newcastle University. In spotlighting the work of young artists the show acts as a statement of intent, in that it underlines the continuing core aim of The NewBridge Project to support emerging talent.

At opposite ends of the bright rectangular gallery space two works by Oliver Doe welcome and engage us in a conversation about the body. ‘Touch me as you need me’ (2017) consists of a framed assemblage of everyday yet very personal objects – a t-shirt, towel, trousers and a plastic bag. Under perspex, the familiar elements are squashed and trapped. Objectified, they become fossils of intimate moments that we can’t help but stare at and ponder about. At the other end of the gallery, Doe’s ‘and no sex or gender will still be the pleasure of love’ (2017) consists of two abstract sculptures: pale and almost transparent, they appear delicate and mysterious. One leans on the other, which in turn appears to recede. Despite the minimalism of the shapes, a questioning narrative concerning two bodies appears.

The body is also at the centre of Olivia Turner’s ‘Eyepiece’(2017). The two sets of four large sculptural elements (cut plywood sheets) that make the core of the work can only be read correctly (as hands holding a microscope) when viewed at a distance, but become abstract forms as we get closer. And yet, the screens embedded in the sculptures (two surgical videos) can only be viewed up close. In creating the conditions for the impossibility of finding a fixed viewing point to look at the installation, the artist creates an apt metaphor for the difficult relationship between the physical and the cerebral, the verbal and the non-verbal.

With the text work ‘Portion Control’ (2017) Helen Shaddock successfully uses stream-of-consciousness writing to give us access to her perception of being an artist. We read: ‘I’m embarrassed to admit I feel the need to prove… Exhibition opening. Everybody asking: what are you working on?’ Whatever shall one answer? Hope is not lost though and we find it in Emily Garvey’s animation, ‘When life gives you lemons’(2017). Here we follow the life adventures of a lemon learning that, as one of the pop songs of the soundtrack remind us, ‘turning bitter into sweet’, is possible after all.

Visiting The NewBridge Project: Gateshead brings back memories of when, over ten years ago, Workplace Gallery opened their first space nearby, in the now demolished Gateshead Car Park, with the intent of supporting young North East based artists. These two organisations share the crucial common goal of creating the conditions for artists not to feel isolated and for talent to prosper in the region. Their new close physical proximity is a welcome development and acts auspiciously for the future of The NewBridge Project.

Reality Check, The NewBridge Project : Gateshead, Gateshead.

14 October – 28 October 2017 (Wed-Sat 12-5pm)

Elisabetta Fabrizi is a curator and writer based in Newcastle upon Tyne and London.


http://corridor8.co.uk/article/newbridge-project-gateshead-reality-check/

Final few days to see REALITY CHECK at The NewBridge Project : Gateshead

Get yourself to The NewBridge Project : Gateshead before it's too late to see the current exhibition, REALITY CHECK.

Open Wednesday - Saturday
12pm - 5pm

232-240 High Street, Gateshead 
(very close to the Tesco Extra, METRO station, VUE cinema)

Final day is this Saturday 28th October

Portion Control

Having carefully considered and made the gallery furniture on which to display my new publication, Portion Control, I wanted to position the actual books in a manner that would complement the formal qualities of the table and stools. In keeping with the stools with their concertina folds, the publications were connected in a concertina fashion on the table.


This sculptural method of display provided the viewer with a glimpse into the publication as well as the outer cover. I enjoy the contrast between the inside and the outside, and hope that the viewer will be prompted to read the text.

I made the furniture child-sized and used candy colours for the work to give the impression that it is innocent and accessible. I hope that this contrast between the appearance and the written content of the publication will surprise the reader and make the work more powerful.

Displaying 'Portion control'

When working with text, one of the challenges is deciding how to display it. There are many things to consider. For example, is it meant to be read aloud and listened to, is it to be performed, is it to be read individually by the audience members, and if so, how will they interact with the text? Is it on the wall so more than one person can read it at once, or in a publication that only one person can read at once. How is the text written? By hand or computer? Is it important to read the text as a whole, or does it consist of shorter individual parts to be read in any order? Are there images alongside the text? Is it part of an installation?

I am going to be exhibiting a text in the group exhibition, REALITY CHECK which opens on Friday. I know that the other artists in the group exhibition have a lot of wall based work, so I want to avoid adding to this. I personally find it quite difficult to read when I am in a gallery, so I want to give the audience the opportunity to take the text away so they can read it in their own time and situation of choice. I have therefore chosen to produce a small publication.



I want to ensure that the publications are not 'lost' amongst the rest of the work, and so I am making a table for the publications to be presented on, and some matching stools for people to sit on while they read the text. In keeping with the publication, Portion Control, I am painting the table to resemble a pie chart.

Finishing touches to my new publication for REALITY CHECK exhibition

Portion Control, my new publication that I will be exhibiting in REALITY CHECK, the forthcoming group exhibition at The NewBridge Project : Gateshead has been in the making for several months now.

In the form of a stream of consciousness, the text is an honest and raw account of a mundane activity that many find trivial, but is of significance to the narrator and others. The process of live experiential writing reveals the narrator’s meandering thoughts and preoccupations during a short period of time; self doubt, indecision, tiredness, relationships, the pressures of modern life.

Although the initial writing period was relatively quick, the text has gone through numerous edits and I have experimented with the format of the text and how it should be displayed. After much thought I have decided to make it into a publication and have incorporated my drawings into the design.

Here is a little taster: