Apologies to all interested parties but we have had to postpone the symposium till Weds 16th June due to unforseen circumstances. We hope you’ll all join us for what should prove to be an exciting and stimulating debate.

Developed as part of the exhibition and site-specific project: ‘Unravelling the Manor House’ at Preston Manor, this symposium aims to open up debate on contemporary crafts and how artists, makers and curators are approaching issues surrounding site and historical contexts.

Speakers are: curator Kate Stoddart, and artists Lyndall Phelps and Catherine Bertola with Project Directors Matt Smith and Polly Harknett

Venues: Preston Manor & The Old Courtroom, Brighton

WEd 16th June 2010

 

10am-5.30pm

 

Cost £10, £5 conc.

Ticket price includes admission to Preston Manor and exhibition that would normally cost £4.60 or £2.30 for Brighton & Hove residents

The day is aimed at artists, curators, students, critics, academics and all those interested in discussing and finding out more about working in specific sites and the related exhibition ‘Unravelling the Manor House’.

To book visit:

www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk/WhatsOn/Pages/PMunravelledpresents12may.aspx

For any further enquiries on the event contact Katie Hobbs: katie.hobbs@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Addresses of venues:

Preston Manor

Preston Drove

Brighton

East Sussex

BN1 6SD

Tel: + 44 (0)3000 290900

www.prestonmanor.virtualmuseum.info/visitor_information.asp

The Old Courtroom

118 Church Street (side entrance)

Brighton BN1 1UD

www.virtualmuseum.info/courtroom.asp

Itinerary of the day

9.45am-10am Arrivals at Preston Manor

10am Tour and discussion of ‘Unravelling the Manor with project directors Matt Smith and Polly Harknett with a selection of exhibiting artists.

12pm-12.30pm Return to Old Courtroom

12.30pm  Kate Stoddart freelance curator

1.30pm Lunch break

2.30pm Artist Lyndall Phelps

3.30-4.15pm Artist Catherine Bertola

4.15pm-4.30pm Tea/coffee break

4.30pm-5.15pm Panel discussion and opportunity for audience to ask questions to all speakers (plenary discussion)

5.15pm-5.30pm-Close

Refreshments of tea and coffee will be available but participants will need to provide their own lunch.

Biographies on Speakers

 

Kate Stoddart

 

Kate Stoddart is an independent curator specialising in the visual arts, with 20 years experience of initiating and organising exhibitions, events, interpretation & publications. She advises and mentors artists and organisations, as well as researching, writing, fundraising and running projects.

She has worked with a variety of organisations: earlier in her career, she was the co-coordinator for Oxford Artweek, an artists led festival, and worked at South Hill Park Arts Centre developing a craft retail outlet and a programme of creative adult education courses. She has had experience of the collectors market (both private and museum) from working at Contemporary Applied Arts and Phillips Auctioneers, and the Craft Centre at the South Bank. She was Exhibitions Curator at Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery for fourteen years where she opened an Art & Science gallery (the Yard Gallery, Wollaton Hall) and initiated and purchased a new collection of contemporary art textiles in partnership with the Contemporary Art Society.

Independent since 2007, she has worked with 78 Derngate, the only Charles Rennie Mackintosh house in England, advising on the contemporary craft development, where she supported the commission on Leaf Fall, a major permanent work by Laura Baxter.  She is also researching a project at Chatsworth, to develop a site-specific programme for artists and makers. She is part of the Forming Ideas programme and visited Cairo in 2008. (www.formingideas.co.uk) She also mentors artists and makers as part of the Future Forward programme in the West Midlands.

Lyndall Phelps

 

Lyndall Phelps makes site and context specific work that primarily references history. The narratives within her practice re-introduce the forgotten, redundant or overlooked; often revealing fragility and vulnerability within our society and the natural world. She works with a range of media including sculpture, photography, video and works on paper.

Phelps completed her Bachelor of Education in Art, and MA’s in Art and Art Administration at the College of Fine Art, Sydney. She has had solo exhibitions in both Australia and England, including Milton Keynes Gallery; Canary Wharf, London; the Natural History Museum at Tring; firstsite, Colchester and Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham.

Phelps has created permanent and temporary commissions for Arts Co., London; Arts Council England, East, and the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk. She has undertaken residences at the Natural History Museum, London and Tring, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, and the Australia Council’s London studio. Current projects include solo exhibitions for Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum, and University of Hertfordshire Galleries.

www.lyndallphelps.com

 

Catherine Bertola

 

Catherine Bertola’s work involves creating installations, objects and drawings that respond to particular sites, collections and historic contexts. Underpinning the work is a desire to look beyond the surface of objects and buildings, to uncover forgotten and invisible histories of places and people, as a way of reframing and considering the past. Often drawing on the historic role of women in society, craft production and labour.

Bertola was born in Rugby in 1976; she studied Fine Art at Newcastle University, and currently lives and works in Gateshead, UK. Recent exhibitions and commissions have included the Walls are talking: Art, Culture and Wallpaper, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, Beyond Pattern, Oriel Davies, Newtown, Artist/Object/Project, National Museum Wales, Cardiff, Out of the Ordinary Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Shake before Using, Artium, Vitoria Gastiez, Spain, The Intertwining Line, Cornerhouse, Manchester, The Government Art Collection, Millennium Gallery, Sheffield and Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire.

She has work in several public and private collections and is represented by Workplace Gallery, Gateshead and M+R Fricke, Berlin.

Caitlin has been working on putting together a symposium as part of the Unravelling the Manor House exhibition at Preston Manor, Brighton. The day will begin with a tour and on-site discussion of the works in Preston Manor with project directors and exhibiting artists.

The second part of the day will take place at the Old Courtroom, Brighton with invited speakers Kate Stoddart a freelance curator who was previously Exhibitions Curator at Nottingham Museum and Gallery, artist Lyndall Phelps whose recent projects include ‘The Pigeon Archive’ a solo exhibition at Milton Keynes Gallery and ‘Unravelled’ exhibiting artist Catherine Bertola whose recent projects include ‘Walls are talking: Art, Culture and Wallpaper’, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

The symposium aims to open up debate on contemporary crafts and how artist and makers are approaching issues surrounding site and historical contexts.

The title of the symposium is Art concepts in historical contexts and will take place on Wednesday 16 June 10am-5pm. The cost of this event is £10 or £5 concessions and further details on how to book and pay, the itinerary of the day and biographies of the speakers will be available soon.

After our meeting at the Manor House, we went for a look around…

On the 19th August, the group piled into a minibus and had a day out at the Cass Sculpture Foundation.