Off to Finland for winter 2014-2015

I'm off for a 3 month residency to Soumenlinna Island off Helsinki, Finland to literally dwell in the darkness and make a new film project about it. I will be in residence at HIAP on 17th Century fort Island. The project is generously funded by the Australian Arts Council and the British Council/Arts Council International Development Fund. 

You can keep a track of what I'm doing on my project blog

Manchester Exhibition

An exhibition curated by Elizabeth Wewiora and Matthew Pendergast At TOAST, 6th Floor, Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces, Federation House, Manchester

15 Nov - 20 December 2014

Hankering for Classification presents new and existing work by ten artists from across the UK, who employ methods of classification, archiving and collecting. The exhibition will also include bespoke exhibition design developed by artist Poppy Whatmore.

Through the experience of differences and relations between things, we determine the meaning they have for us. In a variety of mediums including sculpture, performance, painting and video the artists in this exhibition carry out our shared compulsion to organize, record and curate the world around us, with a will to make sense of it. Whatmore’s reworking of traditional exhibition design will visually and physically connect the art works together emphasizing the nature of an exhibition as a careful arrangement of art works, which contain their own contexts and histories but are also related to one another and the viewer.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of events including: Artists video screenings, talks and workshops. For a full list of programmed events please check: www.wewioraprojects.com/hankeringforclassification

Exhibition work by:

Nicky Bird, Andrew Bracey, David Gledhill, Katie Goodwin, Martin Hamblen, Tobby Huddlestone, Kwong Lee, Niall Macdonald, Claire Tindale and Poppy Whatmore.

Venue Details and Opening Hours:

TOAST, 6th Floor, Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces, Federation House, Manchester,

Open 15 November – 20 December 2014, every Thurs & Fri 1-9pm, Sat 1-6pm, Preview Fri 14 Nov 6-9pm.

Directions: Federation can be found on the corner of Federation Street and Balloon Street, just passed Shudehill Bus Station. Please see the link for exact location,  TOAST

This project has kindly been funded by Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England, with further support from Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces, Federation House and TOAST, and kindly sponsored by Belle Vue Coaches

For all press and marketing enquiries please contact Matthew Pendergast via mpendergast@hotmail.com

www.wewioraprojects.com/hankeringforclassification

Images : (left to right) David Gledhill, Niall Macdonald, Claire Tindale and Poppy Whatmore

Lightness New Film Project

Lightness is a new moving image project, shot at the end of summer 2014 in Greenwich, London & Glenelg, Scotland. I am going into the wilderness in search of the stars - the celestial kind. Lightness will be my first solo 16mm film project shot mostly at night with some digital intervention, an attempt to restore in the viewer some of the lost wonder & humbleness felt when stargazing.

Some of my most profound moments have been whilst viewing the stars in remote areas of the world. Due to burgeoning light pollution, magnificent celestial displays are sadly not something many urban dwellers experience. A little piece of magic disappears from our grey world.

I am embarking on an expedition to the remote village of Glenelg, in the Scottish Highlands, to

film on my 1960s Bolex camera (gifted to mer by Terence Preston, the microbiologist star of Small Wonders). Glenelg boasts some of the most unspoilt night's skies in the UK, which alongside filming, I plan to capture the seasonal tourist Glenchurlish ferry between Glenelg & Skye & meet the crew. I am interested in finding out about their lives & philosophies.

In London I will meet & record conversations with urban astronomers & enthusiasts, perhaps

anecdotes of their first cosmic experiences & how best to see the stars in populated areas. These recordings may be used for the soundtrack of the film.

As part of the Lightness project there will be an online research blog which will be contributed to by artists & writers. Lightness will be screened at my solo show at The Bohunk Institute, Nottingham in November 2014 and further venues, to be announced. Lightness will prelude a sister film project called Darkness made on an Australian Arts Council residency in Finland over the winter of 2014-15.

This project is being made with the aid of an Arts Council grant.

Project Blog

New work premiering at Aldeburgh

My new animation Passing By of the, once ubiquitous now extinct, North American Passenger Pigeon is going to be projected on the South Beach Lookout tower in Aldeburgh, Suffolk as part of the show Ghosts of Gone Birds curated by Chris Aldous next week. 

More info. 28th July to 10th August 2014. From dusk every evening. Exhibition inside gallery during day.

Small Wonders spreads like the plague....

Thanks to the Wellcome Trust's generous funding and the film's popularity it is to be shown at the Cardiff Science festival (Sunday 20th July), as part of Forest Hill London's artist moving image festival SE23mov (Saturday 2nd August 7pm at Montage gallery), screening in Edinburgh as part of the free Fringe film festival 9am-10pm daily for whole of August and SW will be off to International Nature Film Festival in Vaasa, Finland in 1st-5th October. More screenings to come....