Haven't been on here for a while

Muchos has been on since August. What with travelling around Europe and starting third year I've moved on a lot from where I was at the beginning of the summer. My next couple of posts will be awsum pictures which inspire and excite me, things I've done, things other people have done, things I want to go to.
Good news is I've heard the Museum of Everything is coming back!
http://www.museumofeverything.com/exhibition3.php

Potential new Artists Statement?

Hannah Bishop’s work explores the ignored and undervalued nature of the everyday, concerned with exposing beautiful bypassed entities as being what makes up the majority of our existence. Small interventions into the ordinary, a sign on the street, a faint drawing on a chair, a carefully grown weed that’s been left on a doorstep, ‘provoke tiny moments of awareness’[1]. Interested in the variety of mundane happenings and seemingly uninspiring moments the work dwells in quiet contemplation on what is right before the eyes, in opposition to aiming for the unobtainable dream that capitalist society sells us. Ephemeral and miss able the artwork is an alternative to escapism, and calls for an appreciation of the beauty of the pattern of a piece of gravel or the painterly qualities of a damp mark on the ceiling, that which we all have right before our eyes. ‘Today we are facing another economic meltdown and… Art practice will free itself again from grounded institutions’[2]. The glory of the everyday, the magnificence in the ordinary, the splendor of the mundane, the appreciation for the smaller things, is truly what we should value in light of the consequence of unbridled consumerism.

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[1] Droit, R-P. 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life. Kent: Mackays of Chatham plc, 2003. Print.

[2] Bonami, F. ‘Now Is For Ever, Again: Francesco Bonami on the Everday.’ TATE ETC, Issue 15, Spring 2009. Print.

LOVE this blog

http://fuckyeahbooks.tumblr.com/
The really do love books! Check out the site for tons of pictures of imaginative uses of books love the above and below!

Claire Potter Design staycation @ compARTment @ the Open Market

The way claire potter design have transformed the stall in the market is awsum

YOUTH

Have been involved with PLAYGROUND magazine behind the scenes helping with the newest issue themed YOUTH (to be out the end of September). Have found a really interesting article on the subject o the New York Times website called 'What Is It About 20-Somethings' http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

Naked Girls With Masks

Found this on another blog (http://conglamorart.blogspot.com/) with the title and sub title 'Why Do We Reveal Our Faces, Yet Hide Our Bodies? asks photographer Ben Hopper in his recent project 'Naked Girls With Masks'.

hmm..... was drawn to it thinking it would actually answer that question in an interesting way, instead it has just shown me lots of faceless (very) skinny girls' bodies.
Although if you ignore the amount of ribs on show these photos are quite something

I find it weird I can see where the tub is upstairs

The things I don't like about my house make it a real house

To make it really true to life I've put them in black and white and upped the contrast (why are serious hard hitting photographs always in black and white, yes we can see the texture and yes they are beautiful but that's not how life sees. Anyway I'd rather see in sepia)

a gift of moral education

I received a very belated gift from two good friends of mine last week, a beautiful book of aesop's fables. Originally written by a story teller and a slave, an interesting mix of art and life. Some good moral reading for my journeys around Europe next week.

The Little Theatre of Dolls

Saw an ad in the Big Issue for their show /installation in London and wish I could get there (ends on 29th)
check out the tempting image in the ad and they have a beautiful explanation of themselves on their website http://www.thelittletheatreofdolls.com/
Have recently began to expand what it is that I see as art, from reading 'the blurring of art and life' it's come to make me realise it isn't about conforming to mediums or techniques, its more of an open ended exploration of the world we find ourselves in. Need to apply this to my work however!

I need to read more of this book...

'We are unable to accept rewards for being artists, because it has been sensed deeply that to be one means to live and work in isolation and pride. Now that a new haut monde is demanding of us art and more art, we fins ourselves running away or running to it, shocked and guilty either way.'
Why do I try to run away from it?

First play written by a women to be performed at the Globe

Bedlam by Nell Layshon, 5th September-1st October
http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/theatre/annualtheatreseason/bedlam/

Claire Potter Design staycation @ compARTment @ the Open Market

www.compartment.org.uk

Most depressing thing I've read today

First couple of paragraphs from a review of the Klaxons new album by Chris Cottingham in the latest Big Issue....

'Last year, the first draft of the Klaxons' second album was rejected by their record company, Polydor. In the kind of self-abashing tones more commonly associated with an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, frontman Jamie Reynold told NME: "We've made a really heavy record and it isn't the right thing for us, I understand that. First and foremost, we're a pop band. I haven't thought about that for a long time."
That's the sound of creativity and self-expression being kicked out of someone right there.'

urgh...

zine

Homesickness is missing eating breakfast with my family
SERIOUS homesickness is even missing listening to my brother eat cornflakes noisily

Through my work with compARTment I've been lucky enough to get involved with some interesting projects and above is the most recent example of that. Residing in one of our stalls currently are a photographers collective who intend to work with the local community and create documentation of the Open Market as the unique space that it is. They have begun by photographing the wide range of people who visit the market for example Klaus who works there....I at the space for a brief period on that day and it was interesting to see how the project got people talking like nothing else has done so far. Makes me think about the accessible nature of photography and how interesting it is to photograph people.
for more info about what their up to check out http://compartment.org.uk/projects/the-open-market-photographers-collective-compartment/

Fourth plinth the contenders

During my routinely browse of the arts section on the guardian website I came across the contenders for the fourth plinth. I know you I'm backing! 'Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla's piece, Untitled (ATM/Organ), is a working cash machine connected to a functioning pipe organ, which produces different sounds depending on the action the customer is performing' www.guardian.co.uk. Image below also stolen from the good old guardian website!

Really hope this one gets there. Not for any critical interest really, but because of the simple fact it is such an interesting and ridiculous idea and I love it! any excuse to draw money out. Would love to read more...
I think maybe one of the things I like about this piece is that it appealed to my non art educated self, the part of me that is interested in peoples ideas and things that you can happen upon as you go through life.

Off The Latch review by Joanne Lee

Joanne Lee's Off The Latch review is one of the review's of the month on a-n!

My favourite bit of our Off The Latch review

'No doubt you will consider me very frivolous, but in the weeks after my encounter with Off The Latch, I’ve increasingly found myself thinking that the stall functioned a little like Bagpuss’ fictional old shop, a place in which objects await the new life to be leant by someone’s imagination. The artists here know that thrifty recycling is in fashion right now, but it’s clear that their ambition lies beyond mere utility: they want us to explore the poetry of objects and its resulting potency within our emotional lives.' Review by Joanne Lee

Why do I have the urge to make a church out of cocktail sticks?

For some reason I have the biggest urge to make a church out of cocktail sticks. Not like the hugely detailed ones below, I think there'd very little interest there once you get past the initial skill of the works. But it'd like to make my own version, in the same style as the peice below (for some reason its come out really small, for a bigger image check out the gallery on my website www.hannahbishop.com). But a huge version of my cocktail stick church, big enough to fill a room. Don't ask me why, it's like when I wanted to make a chandelier out of empty prawn shells back in the winter. Maybe I should just do it and work out why after, or maybe I'll work it out whilst I'm making them. Who knows?

compARTment

Since finishing my second year of uni I've been looking for a something in Brighton to firstly occupy my time and secondly continue to help me develop my practice since the end of Off The Latch. So I've found myself a job at primark and managed to get involved with compARTment, an arts organisation who look to revitalise empty spaces in Brighton.
I Initially met them during Off The Latch, they'd been enquiring into the possibility of attaining a stall in the Open Market as well and it was great to talk to them about their organisation and what thy wanted to do with the space. Since then they've gained access to two stalls on the south of the Market, along from where Off The Latch was and I've been down there helping them scrape, scrub and paint.
They're planning to have a revolving programme of exhibitions and events, ranging from sonic art, to puppet workshops, graffiti to artist and makers markets. Check out their facebook group and website to be updated about whats going on and to apply to do something in this fantastic space!
Is a brilliant opportunity to show work and create events in unique space in Brighton
http://compartment.org.uk/
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=110716948979781&v=info

Off The Latch review by Joanne Lee

We were very lucky to be put in contact with Brighton based artist and writer Joanne Lee in regards to Off The Latch and I've recently been sent the link for the review she's written. Check it out!

http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/647595

I keen finding different projects that kind of skirt around what it is that i want to do, work which integrates art into life, is socially engaging, outside of the gallery space.
Jeremy Dellers Procession is one such project, I love this clip from the culture show, check it out at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cultureshow/videos/2009/07/s6_e1_deller_webonly/index.shtml
only recently discovered that you can watch all back sections of the culture show about art, handy stuff!

The top image is of a piece called 'So I Will Build My Altar in the Fields' and was made in March 2008, and the bottom image is of the same place in my dad's farm in Somerset taken today, over two years later.
To put it very simply the piece originally dealt with the idea of worshipping and appreciating the land as you do with a religion, after having been set an environmental project on foundation. The piece was situated on the Coleridge way, a walk which crosses much of West Somerset, including the farm, and follows in the footsteps the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge walked often occasionally with good friend Woodworth. I liked the idea of creating an artwork which dealt with the environment, as part of the environment.
Looking back it became for an audience who are both interested in the beauty of the area and those interested in the poet, therefore both the art and non art audience I have previously spoken of.
Also after reading about and feeling inspired by the exhibition at the South London Gallery 'Nothing is Forever' I see links with the way my work has disappeared. Altho while those pieces will intentionally be painted over, I prefer the way my work has disappeared, gradually being claimed back by the land which I was celebrating. Well that and some being knocked over by sheep...
But still id rather create works which become part of that space, rather then being intrusive and are allowed to change over time. Pieces that are not self destructive intentionally but in their nature will not be long lasting, quite an honest way for an artwork to go I think. Nothing lasts forever...

Looking back with new eyes

The top image is of a piece called 'So I Will Build My Altar in the Fields' and was made in March 2008, and the bottom image is of the same place in my dad's farm in Somerset taken today, over two years later.

To put it very simply the piece originally dealt with the idea of worshipping and appreciating the land as you do with a religion, after having been set an environmental project on foundation. The piece was situated on the Coleridge way, a walk which crosses much of West Somerset, including the farm, and follows in the footsteps the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge walked often occasionally with good friend Woodworth. I liked the idea of creating an artwork which dealt with the environment, as part of the environment.

Looking back it became for an audience who are both interested in the beauty of the area and those interested in the poet, therefore both the art and non art audience I have previously spoken of.

Also after reading about and feeling inspired by the exhibition at the South London Gallery 'Nothing is Forever' I see links with the way my work has disappeared. Altho while those pieces will intentionally be painted over, I prefer the way my work has disappeared, gradually being claimed back by the land which I was celebrating. Well that and some being knocked over by sheep...

But still id rather create works which become part of that space, rather then being intrusive and are allowed to change over time. Pieces that are not self destructive intentionally but in their nature will not be long lasting, quite an honest way for an artwork to go I think. Nothing lasts forever...

At home on the farm

Five Sisters Mosaic by Emma Biggs at York St Marys.

Another peice in York St Mary's:
'In 2009, mosaicist Emma Biggs and her art critic and artist husband Matthew Collings created Five Sisters, inspired by the famous window of the same name in York Minster.

This huge 13th century window is made up of 100,000 pieces of glass and Biggs used 10,000 pieces of broken medieval pottery from York Museums Trust's collection to make the mosaic on the floor of St Mary's.'

http://www.yorkstmarys.org.uk/Page/ViewInstallation.aspx?CollectionId=8

Check out the culture show report on the piece:http://www.bbc.co.uk/cultureshow/videos/2009/08/s6_e5_mosaic_web/index.shtml

Love when they're talking about it being the mosaic for the regular people apposed to the traditional idea of mosaics being to worship god of for kings, this one is made from broken pottery used by the regular people in their day to day life. Find the idea which Biggs mentions being able to put her thumb in the thumb place of a medieval potter, doing exactly what someone did hundreds of years ago. Love this idea of old thumb prints, ghosts of previous things in the same way i like the way the paintings on the walls of the South London Gallery will become ghosts, and how our show Off The Latch was full of ghosts of the previous shops, evidence of previous paintwork, hooks and holes in walls which all tell an unknown story.

Am intrigued to find out what else has happened in York St Mary's, and also chuffed I found a bbc site where I cn watch purely the fine art sections of the culture show!

Nothing is forever

Picture from- http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2010/jun/18/exhibitionist-art-shows?picture=363890885

I really love the idea of creating something which is meant to be destroyed/ lost, not in a violent way but in a sad beautiful heartbreaking way, the way we forget memories or things erode. So I really have to get to london to see the show 'Nothing is Forever' at the South London Gallery.

The South London Gallery is a space which I have noticed houses some very interesting interventions and so potentially this could be somewhere I would love to get involved in.

'Nothing is Forever celebrates the completion of the SLG’s £2 million building project, bringing together wall paintings, drawings and text pieces by 20 British and international artists.

Seamlessly integrating art and architecture, each work is destined to be embedded in the fabric of the buildings when painted over at the end of the show.' http://www.southlondongallery.org/page/144/Nothing+is+Forever/84

Would love to work in spaces like this:

Really love the space in which Susan Stockwell has created a sculpture out of computer equiptment, would kill for a space like that!

St Mary's Church, York

http://www.yorkstmarys.org.uk/Page/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?ArticleId=9

Handel Street Projects- Super Farmers Market

Looking forward to going to see Super Farmer's Market, which is a show which deals with the idea of consumption and its links both with the realms of fine art and food:

http://www.handelstreetprojects.com/current.htm

Seizure by Roger Hiorns

Above is an image of a work called Seizure by Roger Hiorns which took place in a disused and condemned flat in London and which I believe encapsulates a lot of the things I have previosuly expressed to be most interesting about art, participatory, installation, out of the gallery context.

'Seizure has effected a peculiar and memorable transformation on the everyday.' Adrian Searle http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/04/art

Image above from from www.tate.org.uk. Below, me in Seizure:


'Seizure has effected a peculiar and memorable transformation on the everyday.' Adrian Searle http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/04/art

Leading on from Off The Latch

Post Off The Latch I have a much clearer idea of where it is that my work is heading. As I previously explained one of the most interesting things to have come out of the show are the conversations with the wide range of visitors we had. An important part of being an artist for me is the connection I have with the artwork, the fact that I have spent hours intricately making it and this is obvious. I believe this brings an honest quality to the work and being in the space, invigilating the exhibition myself and being able to talk first hand to people about my work also does this.
From here I am interested in learning into the power certain types of art have in bringing the idea of art as a whole closer to the viewer and closer to the general public. I believe I have located a number of ways this is done:
-Public Art
-Community Art
-Socially Engaged Art
-Art outside of the Gallery
-Installations
-Participatory Art
-Sound Art
And I intend to explore these to contribute to and improve this exciting area of my own work

Other things I've been involved in

Having only recently moved my blog off of my website and onto here there are a number exciting projects I've been involved in and interesting people I've met.

One such group of people are compARTment who are 'a collective of artists, crafts people and social entrepreneurs from the slack space movement in Brighton who are looking to revitalise large empty/disused sites in the city.' (http://compartment.org.uk/).
A number of their group came along to talk to us while we were setting up Off The Latch in the Open Market as they had been in talks with the council to secure another arts space in the market. Since we met them they've been successful and are now looking for submissions for the space! http://compartment.org.uk/2010/05/30/open-market-project-brighton/

We also met Ruth and Max who came into the space to talk to us and talk photographs as they are in the process of researching a book about pop up spaces, am looking forward to hearing more from them!

I was also lucky enough to have a drawing picked by writer Theodore Kouloris to for the cover of a book he's writing about Helenism and Loss in the work of Viriginia Woolf, below is the chosen image!

Photos of off the Latch!

Off The Latch was a huge success! the space in the Open Market in Brighton was such an interesting space to work in and the audience was a great mix of art and non art lovers, leading to some incredibly interesting conversations which really made the show for me.
The Open View was a fantastic day attracting this mix of audience I have mentioned, and being a sunny day with plenty of cakes and pimms, it really shed the pretentious art gallery feel and made the show into the exciting, interesting and unexpected installation we had hoped for!
I am now so inspired to explore similar projects. Pop up spaces and art which draws in a non art audience, bringing art and life closer together are such an interesting area for me. Can't wait to do more...
More photos will be coming for to my website www.hannahbishop.com

Photos taken by Flora Maclean- http://floramaclean.blogspot.com/

Off The Latch

Off The Latch was a recent exhibition that I co organised with two other artists Rebecca Stern and Eleanor Lane.

Off The Latch
25th May til 5th June
Tuesday til Saturday
9-4pm

Open View 22nd May 3 to 6pm

Off The Latch is a temporary art exhibition inhabiting a disused stall in Brighton's Open Market.

The installation created by Hannah Bishop, Eleanor Lane and Rebecca Stern, challenges where art can exist, developing a dialogue between the work, the space, the audience and the artists themselves. The artists share an interest in creating an alternative to the white cube nature of many contemporary art galleries and explore the extraordinary nature of the everyday, illuminating the beautiful and tragic occurrences that surround us in our lives.

Off The Latch is an open invitation to experience art in an unexpected place, to sit and stare, to think and ask questions.


Stall 41, Open Market, Off London Road, Brighton, BN1 4JS.

Here are a few examples of past works:

Expended, 2009.

David, 2009.

Carpet, 2009.

But Am I An Artist? 2009.

New Blog

After having embarked on updating my website I have decided to remove my blog from the site and set up an external one to communicate with more people.

Although currently under construction check out my website www.hannahbishopcom