TATE Exchange | TATE Liverpool
From 20-24 March Venture Arts took over the Tate Exchange space at Tate Liverpool with the first showcase of Conversations Series II: Other Transmissions. The final works created by the six diverse artists were shown alongside old TV screens sharing six films created by the artists, that could all be selected independently. On display were hand-drawn and iPad drawings, costumes, clay heads, hand-made cocktail suits and a film featuring 3D scans and episodic sound moments. One of the residency artists, Andrew Johnstone, wrote the wall text in his unique handwriting, that all the artists admired.
There was an interactive piece at the front of the space asking audiences to think about something that they found isolating and/or liberating. This piece came from residency artist James Desser, who asked the question, ‘is the term Outsider Art liberating or isolating.’ This question stemmed from the research that the group were doing into the Whitworth’s Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection. With the piece, Desser made a series of letter tiles that audiences had to form into words. Whilst placing the letters onto a line, a camera was recording a time-lapse every second, and over 200 results have been included in a film that will be shown in Artlink Hull (from 29 March-21 June) to share the results.
Works created by six third year Graphic Design students from the University of Salford who had been documenting the project, were also shown including zines, books and a film that explained what Outsider Art is. One of the zines asked audiences to write a word that they thought of when they thought about Outsider Art, with a range of words/phrases being written including:
-square peg, round hole
-unconventional
-ability not disability
-unrecognised talent
At the weekend three of the residency artists ran drop-in workshops using mic’s hooked up to printing plates, to record sounds whilst audiences were drawing. A day of talks was also held on Friday 22 March with the six artists talking about the residency experience and specialists in the field talking about the labels placed on artists and the effects that this has - another blog post will follow soon about this.
With thanks for Ellie Walmsley for these photographs.
