Following our pilot Social Scaffolding exhibitions in Taunton and Bath, we are delighted to have received substantial funding from Arts Council England for a 6-venue tour of the South West over the next 9 months. Our first venue is the wonderful artist-led Create@#8 in Shepton Mallet. Set up as a pop up community arts space in an empty shop on the high street, Create@#8 has been the perfect space for the three of us to launch our new and developing works as we start the tour. It's quirky, industrial, with bare plaster walls, an internal room with windows and a double shop front.
I had a wonderful time installing the first iteration of my new development of Social knitwork, as a site responsive, immersive and interactive, walk-in installation. It featured a den-like space made with recycled garden netting suspended from the ceiling, with a backdrop of some of my knitted and stitched sculptures. It was all set within a separate, internal room, with quaint windows and two curtained changing cubicles. It was definitely a dream for a site responsive installation! Just outside the doorway was a making space, with a few chairs, yarn, strips of cloth and various other tools and materials. Visitors were invited to make something to add to the installation and also to write their thoughts on a label to tie to the netting. Over the course of the exhibition, the space was transformed as participants added their tokens. I also facilitated the making of quite a few pompoms!
As a development of my Living sculptures, I showed a reel of other participants wearing my sculptures from the pilots on two portrait TV screens, one on top of the other. It was a briliant addition! I've also commissioned a 'video booth' app so that visitors will be able to video themselves as Living sculptures. Hopefully, it'll be ready for Weston Super Mare. I am very grateful to Robb Gossett of Red Green Go Productions for the technical support.
In addition to my new and developing work, Alyson Minkley had expanded her Synapse sculpture to three pods, so that she could incorporate a more accessible central one and Juliet Duckworth had devised a participatory human-scale nest set around a scaffolding tower. Visitors were invited to build the nest with twigs and moss, using a pair of gardening gloves stitched together to mimic a bird's beak.
Altogether, it was a fabulous exhibition.