Real Space was a month-long research residency at The Michael Pennie Gallery, Locksbrook Campus, Bath Spa University. It was a research project for 3 MA Fine Art students - Sarah Kniveton, Tim Heath and myself. It was part residency, part test space. It couldn't be open to the general public, sadly, but staff and students at Locksbrook were most welcome to visit. We documented our research on Instagram @realspace2021 and on the Real Space website. During the residency we also collaborated with Hannah Fry, the 4th of our 'Gang of 4' who is currently living in Barcelona. The four of us have met virtually almost every week since the first lockdown in England in March 2020. It was so good to be able to work in a real space, with real people and to make real art.  

The focus of my work was on trialling a number of installations of new and recent works. I was very grateful to Tim and Sarah and the Bath Spa Uni technicians, Poppy Clover and Si Butler for supporting me with my ideas to use some Heras fencing as a cage to frame and install my work. 

Here are some images of my some of my trial installations:

For more details of the the work I did during the residency please visit Real Space on my MA Fine Art research website.

For details specifically about the cage we built in the space, please visit 'Lou Baker, The cage as a frame, research and development, April 2021'

We created a dark space, so I also experimented with some projections, using a small, wheeled cage and different fabrics:

Unexpectedly, another MA Fine Art student, Harry Coucher, who is a performance artist, began to walk amongst my hanging red knitting, interacting with it. He then did an impromptu performance in the space, wearing my red, knitted Body cocoons. It was fabuous, especially as it had been so long since I'd been able to invite people to wear my sculptures because of the pandemic. He came back the next day and di another couple of performances. Here are some images: 

And some videos!