ICF | International Curators Forum

Events

Open Call: Blue Skies

Jillian Mayer - You'll Be Ok (2014)


Open Call: Blue Skies – A Conversation Series

Jillian Mayer, You'll Be Okay (Video Still) (2014) Image courtesy David Castillo Gallery. 


Summary: We are seeking short proposals of up to 300 words detailing a conversation that you would like to have with anyone of your choosing that will form part of a wider collective conversation we would like to host amongst our network around the potential for this moment to elicit change.
Deadline: Please submit a proposal to participate detailing who you would like to have a conversation with and why by 8 June 2020, 5pm BST
Submit to: info@internationalcuratorsforum.org
Fee: £200 per participant

At this moment of physical isolation and hyper-saturation of digital content, we are seeking ways to support our network while fostering open dialogue and exchange amongst us. The myriad of different responses we are seeing to the question of what the long-term impact of Covid-19 might be suggests that there is a need for a more dynamic engagement with the subject. Therefore, we would like to invite you to participate in a collective conversation entitled Blue Skies around the potential for this moment to elicit change, as a means of exploring individual and collective responses both in the immediate present and in the future once the lockdown has ended.

The parameters of what constitutes ‘change’ are left open – this could include change within the arts sector, in relation to ways of working, in the lives of people of colour or those who are disabled, or in the ways that we relate to others and travel freely or work internationally.

We ask anyone who would like to take part in this conversation to send us a few lines of no more than 300 words detailing who you would like to have your conversation with and why. That person could be anyone – a fellow creative practitioner, a colleague, a family member, a teacher or mentor, a figure of interest that you would like to connect with. Each conversation will be made accessible to a public audience in some way based on the intentions and desires of those participating in it – the conversation can be held live on ICF’s social media accounts or on streaming platforms, it can be recorded or transcribed and then added to the ICF channels in its entirety or in an edited form, or for certain participants who want to treat the conversation as research or one-to-one mentorship, they will be asked to produce a visual, written or creative response to the conversation that can be shared online.

We will select 12 proposals for conversations, and both you and the person you invite to have the conversation with you will receive a fee of £200 for your time and contribution.

Manifestations from all conversations will be posted on the ICF website and activated through our social media channels, creating a digital conversation that responds to this notion of possible change and can be accessed widely and openly.

 

Image: Jillian Mayer, You’ll Be Okay (Video Still) (2014) Image courtesy David Castillo Gallery. 

This initiative is made possible with Art Fund support 

Global Plantation Series: A Land of Extraordinary Quarantines

Shiraz Bayjoo, Extraordinary Quarantines No15


Global Plantation Series: A Land of Extraordinary Quarantines

A Conversation between Shiraz Bayjoo and Anna Arabindan-Kesson 

ICF invites you to join us on Friday 5 June 2020 at 17:00 BST / 12:00 EDT for the first of a series of artist-directed digital discussions that contemplate the global forms and meanings of the plantation historically, and in our contemporary moment.

When Mark Twain visited Mauritius in 1896, he described it as a Land of Extraordinary Quarantines, referring to the fear of disease transmission associated with ships transporting indentured laborers to the island. The dual image of the island as a space of quarantine and a plantation animates artist Shiraz Bayjoo’s multi-media practice, and the archives-in formation he creates. In this conversation Shiraz and art historian Anna Arabindan-Kesson will reflect on the convergence of extraction and confinement, of humans and natural world, of labor and memory in his Indian ocean landscapes. How does art help us understand the afterlives of these colonial histories, in our current experience of confinement, and provide alternative possibilities for working through this uncertain present?

Register on Eventbrite to stream the conversation via Zoom. 


About the speakers: 

Shiraz Bayjoo studied Painting at the University of Wales, Institute Cardiff, and was artist in residence at Whitechapel Gallery during 2011. He has exhibited at Tate Britain and the Institute of International Visual Arts, London; 14th Biennale of Sharjah; 13th Biennale of Dakar; 21st Biennale of Sydney; and is a recipient of the Gasworks Fellowship and the Arts Council of England. His work is represented in the Sharjah Foundation collection, UK Government collection, and French National collection, as well as private collections both in Europe and Asia. Born in Mauritius, Bayjoo’s work focuses on the Indian Ocean and the European historical legacies that have shaped the region. Bayjoo has been a visiting lecturer and critic at universities both in Europe and the USA, most notably the Courtauld Institute, Central St. Martin’s college of Art, MONASH university Australia, and Princeton University (forthcoming) USA. Bayjoo is participating in the Diaspora Pavilion 2 programme.

Anna Arabindan-Kesson is an art historian and writer, who is jointly appointed as an Assistant Professor of Black Diaspora Art in the departments of African American Studies and Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. She has lived and studied in Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand and England and prior to completing her PhD in African American Studies and Art History in the United States, Anna was a Registered Nurse. Her personal and professional background inflect her academic and curatorial work which focuses on the relationship of vision and visuality to histories of race, empire, and migration.

Images courtesy Shiraz Bayjoo. 

Open Call: Curator/Researcher in Residence at Art360 Foundation Engaging with the Archive of Aubrey Williams


Open Call – Curator/Researcher in Residence at Art360 Foundation in partnership with International Curators Forum 

Art360 Foundation and International Curators Forum are seeking curators and researchers interested in engaging with and developing work around the archive of British-Caribbean artist Aubrey Williams. The Guyana-born artist is credited as being one of the most important post-war British painters, noted for bringing together a spectrum of visual references and cultural perspectives in his work. Trained as an agronomist, Williams held an array of interests from pre-Columbian iconography, classical music and ornithology, and was a founding member of the Caribbean Artists Movement.

Williams’ archive is currently held at Art360 Foundation in London, and the aim of this opportunity is to encourage and facilitate new and dynamic readings of his work and practice through an active engagement with the personal documents and items held there. Supported by ICF, successful applicants will review the materials – such as exhibition materials, photographs, personal correspondence, press clippings and political documents – in the archive and develop a new strand of research and analysis.

Work on the Aubrey Williams archive was underway before Covid-19, with documentation and reporting on the contents of the archive close to completion. Although physical access to the archive won’t be possible until social isolation measures change, the appointed curator/researcher can utilise existing records to begin preliminary research remotely. The residency will continue with direct access to the archive at a future date.

Please submit your CV and an expression of interest of no more than 500 words by Monday 15 June at 17:00 to contact@art360foundation.org.uk. Informal interviews will be held during the last two weeks of June and the successful applicant notified in the first week of July. 

Fees and resources:

  • Curatorial/research fee of £2,000 for work over an 8-month timeframe, a portion of these funds can be allocated towards preliminary research whilst social isolation measures are in place  
  • Travel up to £200
  • Desk space at Art360 Foundation
  • Professional and project development support through ICF

Timeline:

  • Deadline: 15 June 2020
  • Informal interviews: 22 June – 3 July 2020
  • Residency timeframe: July 2020 – February 2021

Eligibility:

  • This opportunity is open to emerging and mid-career curators and researchers based in the UK
  • We particularly want to address the imbalances in representation within the sector; we will prioritise applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people, those who identify as Deaf/Disabled and/or LGBTQI.

Images: Aubrey Williams Archive (c) Aubrey Williams Estate. Photo: Art360 Foundation.

Network Support for those Affected by Covid-19


Network Support for those Affected by Covid-19

Due to the spread of Covid-19 and in compliance with government guidelines we have postponed all public programming until further notice. However we are quickly shifting our programme to support our network in new ways at this difficult time. While we work with our staff and trustees, with the guidance of members of our network, to provide new and responsive opportunities and support for artists and freelance creative practitioners, we are also collaborating with our partners and funders to keep all members of our community informed about the opportunities available to them, including funding, commissions, digital residencies and online guidance. Please subscribe to our mailing list via our homepage and follow us on social media to receive updates from us. We are committed to learning, sharing and adapting in light of this unpredictable situation – so please stay in touch, send us initiatives that we can share with our network or questions that you may need answered about some of the opportunities below, and know that we are here to help in any way we can. 

Active Funded Opportunities and Initiatives for Artists and Freelance Practitioners

Below we have collated a list of opportunities and initiatives that are being provided by organisations and funders across the sector for artists, freelance practitioners and small organisations affected by Covid-19. There are also several other organisations providing guidance for those applying for funding including:

Please see below a list of active and funded opportunities and initiatives for freelance practitioners and small organisations *Please note this list has been generated through research by ICF to share with our network, it will be updated as new opportunities are announced and deadlines for open opportunities pass, and details are subject to change at the discretion of the host organisations/funders.
OpportunityOrganisation / FunderFundsApplication datesApplication lengthOther detailsLink
WFH residency for London-based artists Art Quest£1000Applications open 30 March - 1 July with 1 selected a monthShortFor those who have had work cancelled to prouduce new content; particular support for producing co-operative or communal approach to connect people https://bit.ly/39xLhEo
Open commissions for disabled artistsDisability Arts Online£50 - £500Open April onwardsEmail onlyOpen to disabled artistshttps://bit.ly/2xJeejy
Artists digitial talksDisability Arts Online£200Open April onwardsEmail onlyOpen to disabled artistshttps://bit.ly/2xJeejy
Artists articles on 'day in the life'Disability Arts Online£120 - £150Open April onwardsEmail onlyOpen to disabled artistshttps://bit.ly/2xJeejy
Bridging Bursary for artists and freelancers in ScotlandCreative Scotland£500 - £2500Open 3 AprilShortFor those who have lost their income based in Scotlandhttps://bit.ly/2wTNb4P
Open fund to held individuals and organisations to sustain themselves Creative Scotland£1K - £50KRunning all year roundShortFor practitioners based in Scotlandhttps://bit.ly/2X0ESio
Small projects grants for organisations to test new ways of working that will benefit audience Art FundUp to £10KOpen for submissionOnline submission formTo help organisations continue to engage with their audiences during closurehttps://bit.ly/39AUb3G
Professional network grantsArt FundUp to £5KOpen for submissionOnline submission formFor professional networks to continue engagement remotely and deliver digital contenthttps://bit.ly/2wVE9Es
Photographers FundFormat$500Not specifiedNot specified - seems flexibleOpen to all members of the photography community https://bit.ly/2w4p6b1
Artist GrantsThe Eaton Fund>£300Open4-page online formPainters, potters, sculptors and photographers only. Can apply for materials and equipmenthttps://bit.ly/2X6TFYW
Grants for small creative businnesSouth East Creatives£1K - £20KNot specifiedShort online formEast Sussex, Essex and Kent businesses only. Grant can cover up to 35% of project costs.https://bit.ly/39EwIyH
Remote Residencies Open Call for Artists in Liverpool, Peterborough and Southend-on-SeaMetal Liverpool£1000 stipend3 rounds - Deadlines 15 May, 12 June and 10 JulyOnline application formSupported remote residencies for 18 artists based in Liverpool, Peterborough and Southend-on-Seahttps://bit.ly/2VrnBgY
Emergency Fund for Artists and Freelance Creative PractitionersFreelands Foundation£1500 - £2500Opens 7 MayTBAOpen to visual arts practitioners based in the UK including those not eligible for other emergency fundshttps://bit.ly/2yW9fMS
Curator / researcher in residence engaging with the archive of Aubrey Williams Art360 Foundation & International Curators Forum£2000Deadline 15 JuneShort expression of interest and CV submitted via emailOpen to UK-based curators and researchershttps://bit.ly/2T0BReS
Transforming Narratives - Open Call for Digital Collaborative GrantsBritish Council & Culture CentralUp to £4000Deadline 19 JuneOnline application formFostering connections and collaborations between creative practitioners in Birmingham, Pakistan and Bangladesh https://bit.ly/361KFqj
Constellations 2020/21 - Annual development programme for artistsUP Projects & Flat Time HouseProgramme is freeDeadline 7 JuneOnline applicationOpen to UK-based artists exploring socio-political issues, community-oriented practice and/or public contextshttps://bit.ly/3bpSreR
Blue SkiesInternational Curators Forum£200 per participant Deadline 8 JuneShort proposal of no more than 300 wordsCommissioning conversations on the capacity of this moment to elicit changehttps://bit.ly/2yxqX9y

Diaspora Pavilion Artists Roundtable


Diaspora Pavilion Artists Roundtable Discussion
 

 

Please note that due to Covid-19 and in compliance with government guidelines we have decided to postpone this event until further notice. Please subscribe to our mailing list and follow us on social media for updates on how we are staying in touch with our network digitally. 

Speakers: Shiraz Bayjoo, Kashif Nadim Chaudry, Paul Maheke, Erika Tan & Zadie Xa 
Moderators: Adelaide Bannerman & Jessica Taylor

International Curators Forum is holding a roundtable discussion with artists engaged with the 2017 and forthcoming iterations of the Diaspora Pavilion project. The discussion will reflect on the 2017 Venice exhibition and the capacities of artistic and curatorial practice to complicate and interrogate diaspora as a concept and lived experience. The talk will highlight the approaches that the ICF team has adopted for the next iteration of the project to create a more sustainable and site specific programme of peripatetic research, exchanges and international events, set to unfold between 2020 and 2022. 

The first Diaspora Pavilion programme was launched in 2016 to support ten artists over two years in a professional development capacity and showcased their work alongside nine mentor artists in the Diaspora Pavilion exhibition, which was held in Venice during the 2017 Biennale and curated by David Bailey and Jessica Taylor. The success of the first Diaspora Pavilion exhibition led to a re-staging of a selection of the artworks at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in the UK in 2018 and has motivated a period of research and development undertaken by the ICF team as a means of developing a more sustainable and international exhibition model for the second phase of the project.

Diaspora Pavilion 2 will be an active, multi-site programme of exhibitions and events that will support and showcase the work of a group of international artists who engage with diaspora as a concept in their work. The programme will begin with an exhibition titled ‘I am a heart beating in the world: Diaspora Pavilion 2, Sydney’ presented in collaboration with 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in Australia (16 April – 7 June 2020), which will create a dialogue between 3 UK-based and 3 Australia-based artists. With aims to hold further site-specific iterations of the project in Venice, London and the Caribbean between 2021 and 2022, the curators of DP2 are attempting to take a more critical look at the ways in which diaspora functions as a distinct sometimes provisional experience, nuanced economically, historically and regionally. This unfolding programme will interrogate and complicate the term diaspora through a series of conversations about the navigations, imaginings and lived experiences of diaspora subjectivities through the works of a group of artists from around the world.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS  

Shiraz Bayjoo (b. Mauritius; lives and works in London and Mauritius) studied Painting at the University of Wales, Institute Cardiff, and was artist in residence at Whitechapel Gallery during 2011. He has exhibited at Tate Britain and the Institute of International Visual Arts, London; 14th Biennale of Sharjah; 13th Biennale of Dakar; 21st Biennale of Sydney; and is a recipient of the Gasworks Fellowship and the Arts Council of England. His work is represented in the Sharjah Foundation collection, UK Government collection, and French National collection, as well as private collections both in Europe and Asia. Born in Mauritius, Bayjoo’s work focuses on the Indian Ocean and the European historical legacies that have shaped the region. Bayjoo has been a visiting lecturer and critic at universities both in Europe and the USA, most notably the Courtauld Institute, Central St. Martin’s college of Art, MONASH university Australia, and Princeton University (forthcoming) USA. Bayjoo is participating in the Diaspora Pavilion 2 programme.

Kashif Nadim Chaudry (b. Nottingham, United Kingdom; lives and works in Nottingham) is informed by his family heritage in tailoring which has influenced and focused his practice around the importance of materiality and craftsmanship. His work is characterised by the working, shaping and moulding of physical objects through the use of elaborate textile-based techniques to create monumental installations from fabric and found objects. Negotiating his identity as a British born gay man of Pakistani Muslim heritage much of Chaudry’s work questions how people choose to position themselves in the world. It is increasingly the sculptural and three-dimensional possibilities within his work that address the idea of positioning power, the sacred and the ceremonial. Recent exhibitions include Swags & Tails as part of the Asia Triennial, Manchester, UK (2014) and The Three Graces, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2016). Chaudry will exhibit in ‘I am a heart beating in the world: Diaspora Pavilion 2, Sydney’ at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in collaboration with ICF.

Paul Maheke (b. Brive-la-Gaillarde, France; lives and works in London, United Kingdom) completed a MA in Art Practice at l’École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy in 2011 and a programme of study at Open School East, London/Margate in 2015. With a focus on dance, and through a varied and often collaborative body of work comprising performance, installation, sound and video, Maheke considers the potential of the body as an archive in order to examine how memory and identity are formed and constituted. Selected solo exhibitions include Levant, Ludlow 38, New York (2019); OOLOI, Triangle France, Marseille (2019); Diable Blanc, Galerie Sultana (2019); A fire circle for a public hearing, Vleeshal, Middelburg (2019). Selected group exhibitions and performances include Sénsa (performance with Nkisi and Ariel Efraim Ashbel), Abrons Art Center, New York, Performa 19 and Meetings on Art, 58th Venice Biennale (2019); Elements of Vogue, Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City (2019); Transcorporealities, Ludwig Museum, Cologne (2019); Le Fil d’Alerte, Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, Paris (2019); Get Up, Stand Up Now, Somerset House, London (2019); The Distance is Nowhere (performance with Sophie Mallett) ICA Miami (2019); Meetings on Art, 58th Venice Biennale (2019). Maheke exhibited in the 2017 Diaspora Pavilion.

Erika Tan leads a practice that is primarily research-led and manifests in multiple formats, with a leaning towards moving image, referencing distributed media in the form of cinema, gallery-based works, internet and digital practices. Evolving from an interest in anthropology and the moving image, her work is often informed by specific cultural, geographical or physical contexts. Her research interests focus on the postcolonial and transnational, working with archival artefacts, exhibition histories, received narratives, contested heritage, subjugated voices and the transnational movement of ideas, people and objects. She is currently the Stanley Picker Fellow in Fine Art; Decolonising Arts Institute Associate Researcher, UAL; and a lecturer on the B.A. Fine Art, 4D Pathway, Central Saint Martins, UAL. Her work has been exhibited, collected and commissioned internationally including: A Place in the World, NUA Gallery, Norwich; Unrealised Commission, National Gallery, Singapore; On Attachments and Unknowns, Sa Sa Bassac, Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Artist and Empire (Tate Touring, National Gallery Singapore 2016/7); Come Cannibalise Us, Why Don’t You (NUS Museum, Singapore 2014); There Is No Road (LABoral, Spain 2010); Thermocline of Art (ZKM, Germany 2007); Around The World in Eighty Days (South London Gallery / ICA 2007); The Singapore Biennale (2006); Cities on the Move (Hayward Gallery, London). Recent curatorial projects: Sonic Soundings/Venice Trajectories and an instigator of FLOW, 3 days of events at Asia-Art-Activism, Raven Row. Tan exhibited in the 2017 Diaspora Pavilion. 

Zadie Xa (b. Vancouver, Canada; lives and works in London, United Kingdom) explores the overlapping and conflation of cultures that inform self-conceptualisation identities and notion of self through performance, video, painting and textiles. Her layered textile works are sites for exploring contemporary identity construction and performance through cultural sampling, informed by her own experience within the Asian diaspora. Xa’s intricate, hand sewn wearable and performable garments stitch together a range of personally relevant imagery sourced from music, digital space, fashion, and art history. Xa has developed a system of personalised semiotics that propose entirely new images and objects, creating a personal visual language for articulating nuanced Asian identity narratives, which are frequently situated within fantastical or supernatural realms. Recent solo exhibitions include Meetings on Art performance program for the Venice Biennale open week (2019), Child of Magohalmi and the Echos of Creation, Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan (2019) and Soju Sipping on a Sojourn to Saturn, Galeria Agustina Ferreyra, Mexico (2018). Xa will exhibit in ‘I am a heart beating in the world: Diaspora Pavilion 2, Sydney’ at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in collaboration with ICF.

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL CURATORS FORUM (ICF)

ICF was founded in 2007 to publicly promote the work of cultural practitioners, and to encourage and develop artistic and curatorial practice and discourse about contemporary visual art across all forms. ICF does this through commissioning new works, exhibitions, public programmes and events. ICF also promotes and supports the professional development and public visibility of cultural practitioners through programmes that include public exhibitions and events, mentoring and masterclasses. The 2016-18 programmes Diaspora Pavilion and Beyond the Frame were nationally and internationally notable for their innovative proposals and approaches to addressing professional development and cultural diversity. Both programmes were presented in partnership with University of the Arts London, and were co-directed by David Bailey, Mark Crawley, Nicola Green and Peter Clayton. Other ICF projects include: Tactical Interventions (Venice, Kassel, Munster, Istanbul in 2007), The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age (Sydney Biennial in 2010), Caribbean Pavilion (Liverpool Biennial in 2010), Black Diaspora Visual Art (2011-2), Curating the International Diaspora (London, Gwangju, Sharjah, Barbados and Martinique 2016-7), Sensational Bodies (2017) and Migrating Cities (2019). ICF is currently developing the Diaspora Pavilion 2 programme (2019 – 2021).

Image: Zadie Xa, Child of Magohalmi and the Echos of Creation, live performance as part of Art Night London (2019) Devised with and performed by Iris Chan, Jia-Yu Corti, Mary Feliciano, Jihye Kim and Yumino Seki, percussion: Jihye Kim, choreographed by Jia-Yu Corti and Yumino Seki; photo: Matt Rowe.

Presenting Partners: 

Supporting Partners: 

I am a heart beating in the world: Diaspora Pavilion 2, Sydney


ICF and 4A present:
‘I am a heart beating in the world: Diaspora Pavilion 2, Sydney’

Please note that due to Covid-19 and in compliance with government guidelines we have decided to postpone this event until further notice. Please subscribe to our mailing list and follow us on social media for updates on how we are staying in touch with our network digitally. 

Exhibiting artists: Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Kashif Nadim Chaudry, Lindy Lee, Leyla Stevens, Zadie Xa and Daniela Yohannes.
Curators: Adelaide Bannerman, Mikala Tai and Jessica Taylor.

I am a heart beating in the world is the first of a series of peripatetic international events that culminate in ICF’s Diaspora Pavilion 2 programme. 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art is collaborating with ICF to present this unfolding series that will interrogate and complicate the term diaspora. As the first project of the series, I am a heart beating in the world presents the navigations, imaginings and lived experiences of diasporic subjectivities through the works of six artists based in Australia, the UK and Caribbean: Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Kashif Nadim Chaudry, Lindy Lee, Leyla Stevens, Zadie Xa, Daniela Yohannes.

Understanding diaspora as a distinct sometimes provisional experience nuanced economically, historically and regionally I am a heart beating in the world is as much an exhibition as it is a research project, underpinned by fieldwork and reviews of how artists, curators, theorists and institutions engage with diaspora as a topic. 4A’s biannual 4A Curators Intensive will be held alongside the exhibition in April bringing together early-career Australian curators alongside a UK based early career curator for a week-long professional development programme. The intensive will be facilitated through workshops, lectures, site visits and discussions.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Abdul-Rahman Abdullah (b. Port Kembla, Australia 1977 lives and works in Perth, Australia) is a sculptor whose practice explores the different ways that memory can inhabit and emerge from familial spaces. Drawing on the narrative capacity of animal archetypes, crafted objects and the human presence, Abdullah aims to articulate physical dialogues between the natural world, politics and the agency of culture. Recent exhibitions include The National, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2019), Dark Horizons, Pataka Art + Museum, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand (2017) and Magic Object; Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, Adelaide, Australia (2016).

Kashif Nadim Chaudry (b. Nottingham, United Kingdom 1976 lives and works in Nottingham, United Kingdom) is informed by his family heritage in tailoring which has influenced and focused his practice around the importance of materiality and craftsmanship. His work is characterised by the working, shaping and moulding of physical objects through the use of elaborate textile-based techniques to create monumental installations from fabric and found objects. Negotiating his identity as a British born gay man of Pakistani Muslim heritage much of Chaudry’s work questions how people choose to position themselves in the world. In relation, it is increasingly the sculptural and three-dimensional possibilities within his work that address the idea of positioning power, the sacred and the ceremonial. Recent exhibitions include Swags & Tails as part of the Asia Triennial, Manchester, UK (2014) and The Three Graces, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2016).

Lindy Lee (b. Brisbane, Australia 1954 lives and works in Byron Bay, Australia) has an expansive practice that explores her Chinese ancestry through Taoism and Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism – philosophies that see humanity and nature as inextricably linked. Symbolic gestures and processes that call on the element of chance are often used to produce a galaxy of images that embody the intimate connections between human existence and the cosmos. Rather than singular visual statements, they are thoughtful objects where meaning emerges from sustained meditation. Recent exhibitions include the solo Lindy Lee: The Dark of Absolute Freedom, The University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia (2014), and group exhibitions Divided Worlds: Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia (2018) and Marking Time, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2012).

Leyla Stevens (b. Cooroy, Australia 1982 lives and works between Bali, Indonesia and Sydney, Australia) is an Australian-Balinese artist and researcher who works predominately within moving image and photography. Her practice is informed by ongoing concerns around gesture, ritual, spatial encounters, transculturation and counter histories. Working within modes of representation that shift between the documentary and speculative fictions, her work deals with a notion of counter archives and alternative genealogies. Recent exhibitions include her solo presentations Their Sea is Always Hungry, UTS Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2019) and Of Love and Decomposition, Firstdraft, Sydney, Australia (2016) and group exhibitions Breathing Room (collaboration with Woven Kolektif), Cement Fondue, Sydney, Australia (2019), BEAUT 19, Brisbane & Elsewhere Art UnTriennial, Brisbane, Australia (2018) and the John Fries Award, UNSW Galleries, Sydney, Australia (2018).

Daniela Yohannes (b. 1982 lives and works in Guadeloupe, in the French Carribean) is a British-Eritrean/Ethiopian artist who, since training, as an illustrator has meandered through several disciplines before becoming an artist. Since moving to the Caribbean two years ago, her surroundings have found their way into her creations. She describes her inspiration as that of the invisible; the forces and concepts that drive and surround us: unseen but constantly at work on our bodies and minds. Her paintings and recent moving image works are witness to the expression of nature; explorations of the intimate experiences that are shared only with the elements: earth, air, water, and space. She confronts themes of the unconscious, race, identity and ancestry, the ethereal nature of the cosmos and plurality of the individual – interrogating the nature of belonging and what constitutes that feeling of ‘home’ and the impact and consequences of alienation. Recent solo exhibitions include; The Fall: A Woman’s descent into the Unconscious, Addis Fine Art Project Space London, UK, (2019), Beyond Voudou, The Pikture Gallery Bangkok, Thailand (2010) and group exhibitions Influence Project, Real Music Rebels East Wing Takeover, Somerset House London, UK, (2018) and House of Wahala Project Texas, USA (2017).

Zadie Xa (b. Vancouver, Canada 1983 lives and works in London, United Kingdom) explores the overlapping and conflation of cultures that inform self-conceptualised identities and notions of self through performance, video, painting and textiles. Her layered textile works are sites for exploring contemporary identity construction and performance through cultural sampling, informed by her own experience within the Asian diaspora. Xa’s intricate, hand sewn wearable and performable garments stitch together a range of personally relevant imagery sourced from music, digital space, fashion, and art history. Xa has developed a system of personalised semiotics that propose entirely new images and objects, creating a personal visual language for articulating nuanced Asian identity narratives, which are frequently situated within fantastical or supernatural realms. Recent solo exhibitions include Meetings on Art performance program for the Venice Biennale open week (2019), Child of Magohalmi and the Echos of Creation, Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan (2019) and Soju Sipping on a Sojourn to Saturn, Galeria Agustina Ferreyra, Mexico (2018).

Images: Daniela Yohannes, Atopias: I Have Left that Dark Cave Forever, My Body has Blended with Hers (2019) Video still; photo courtesy the artist. 

Curator in Residence, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum

 

Curator in Residence at Herbert Art Gallery & Museum

We are excited to announce the appointment of Sylvia Theuri as New Art West Midlands and International Curators Forum Curator in Residence. Hosted by Culture Coventry at the city’s Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, the role will see Sylvia work with 6 artists from New Art West Midlands’ 2019 graduate cohort, across a year of bespoke professional development activity, leading up to an exhibition of new work by those artists at the Herbert Art Gallery in autumn 2020.

The artists selected to participate in the exhibition and programme include: Hira Butt, Andreana Fatta, Navi Kaur, Shiyi Li, Farwa Moledina and Matias Serra Delmar. 


ICF Beyond the Frame programme site visit to Haus der Kunst, Munich, February 2017

Sylvia was selected for the post by a panel of arts professionals through an open call to curators based in and affiliated with the West Midlands. The post was made possible through partnership with the Herbert Art Gallery and International Curators Forum, as part of a New Art West Midlands programme supporting new talent and perspectives funded by Arts Council England. The partnership with International Curators Forum brings access to international networks and contexts – part of a distinctive professional development package that aims to create pathways into future opportunities for Sylvia and for the artists involved.

Sylvia notes: “I am excited to have taken on the role of Curator in Residence and to be a part of shaping the developing arts and culture in the city of Coventry where I live and call home. It is of great importance that we foster the visibility of and engagement with the visual arts to new and varied audiences, by ensuring that visual art spaces are not seen as ‘uninhabitable spaces’ but rather as welcoming and comfortable”.

Talking about working with artists to support new work relating to Coventry, Sylvia says: “I am very much looking forward to working with a cohort of New Art West Midlands 2019 artists to help shape their professional development across the course of the next year towards a new exhibition in 2020”.

Craig Ashley, Director of New Art West Midlands, said: “We are delighted to announce Sylvia’s appointment and look forward to working with her over the next 12 months. She brings a distinctive approach and perspective, with ambitions to support and reflect the region’s very best talent.”

 

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