AA Membership will be hosting a special Saturday Gallery Talk off-site for the Between Thought and Space exhibit in South London’s Dilston Grove, a former concrete church now used as an exhibition space.
AA Diploma Unit 1 Master Miraj Ahmed & selected artists: Isha Bøhling, Kelly Chorpening, Pierre D’Avoine, Shin Egashira, Matt Franks, Issam Kourbaj, Jeffrey T Y Lee, Theo Lorenz, Ian Monroe, Foster Spragge and Tony Thatcher whose works are featured in the exhibition will take Members on a guided tour of the show and explain the different stories behind their pieces on display.
This event is open to all and free to attend, any questions please e-mail events@aaschool.ac.uk
Exhibition Text:
Between Thought and Space consists of 12 practitioners working within art, sound, architecture and choreography. The exhibition at Dilston Grove is the centerpiece of a live research project spanning September 2014 – December 2016, where participants have engaged collectively to the social, material and historical fabric of the building in order to create new work.
Dilston Grove is a unique historic site to engage with: a deconsecrated Italianate chapel built by Clare College, Cambridge in 1911, one of the first in-situ poured concrete structures built in the UK, and now, a dynamic exhibition venue. The building has qualities that typify Modernism and the Post-Industrial age; its austere bunker-like structure reminiscent of the process of mould-making, and its physical effect on ambient temperature are felt viscerally as well as through the intellect. The building is in some liminal state, between things, between histories, almost a ruin, yet physically resilient and as such reflects the ethos of the project.
Propositions will broaden the possibilities of what can be described as content or curating. Work includes the choreographic tracing of the building’s exterior as a form of measure, the depiction of structures that imagine the building’s construction and near destruction, and interpretations of the building’s social uses over time through sculpture, live performance and sound.
As an exhibition, Between Thought and Space explores the democratic potential of site-research. Ongoing exchange and dialogue has enabled individuals to resist conclusions or rest upon ‘what they would normally do’ in order to respond more collectively to Dilston Grove, their work building directly upon the knowledge and esteem of a site vital within the area for over 100 years.
Ongoing live performances and re-positioning of works within the space throughout the exhibition, as well as an in-conversation will take place at the Architectural Association (AA) on 15 May 2015 between architectural historian Professor Jane Rendell and Sally Shaw, Head of Programmes, Modern Art Oxford, and previously Curator of Art on the Underground (see event listing here). This will be a discussion of the value of interdisciplinary collaboration and the creative, critical and even democratic potential of site-research, in relation to the contexts of both the Dilston Grove exhibition and contemporary practice in general.
Participating Artists: Miraj Ahmed, Isha Bohling, Kelly Chorpening, Pierre D’Avoine, Shin Egashira, Tom Emerson, Matt Franks, Conor Kelly, Issam Kourbaj, Jeffrey T Y Lee, Theo Lorenz, Ian Monroe, Foster Spragge, Alex Schweder and Tony Thatcher.
cgplondon.org
betweenthoughtandspace.com
Image: Foster Spragge