20 May - 4 June 2023, Unit 27, The Sovereign, Weston Super Mare
Weston-Super-Mare was the second venue in Social Scaffolding's 6-venue, Arts Council-funded tour in the South West of England between April and November 2023. in 2022, before the tour, we faciliated two pilot exhibitions in Taunton and at the Emerge Showcase at Bath Spa University in Bath. We also exhibited at two other Emerge Showcases in 2023. Please visit the Social Scaffolding website for full details. Many thanks to the other Social Scaffolding artists, Alyson Minkley and Juliet Duckworth, and to the Emerge community for all their support throughout.
Unit 27 was a long, thin, box-like, rectangular space. It was on the ground floor of The Sovereign, a large, indoor shopping centre near the pier in Weston. It was the second venue in our Social Scaffolding tour.
This space was much less aesthetically interesting than Create@#8, but it was really intriguing to set up the Social Scaffolding installations in such a different environment.
Living sculptures: I was able to launch my new 'video booth' app, using an iPad attached to the wall. It was definitely a hit! Visitors were invited to video themselves wearing one of my scupltures by pressing a button on the iPad. They were then given a chance to review the 10second video and if they were happy with it, it would appear of the human sized screen in a couple of minutes. It was such a joy to witness the fun and hilarity of the performances.
There was only room for 3 of my metal body sculptures in the shop window, so I hung two of the knitted Body cocoons on two large hooks on the wall nearby. This obviously l;ooked quite different, but in a way, I think being on hooks made it easier for people to remove the knitted sculptres and wear them.
Social knitwork: I found it very exciting to see how different my netting structures and sculptures were in such a different space. I am interested in the way that textiles are site=responsive shapeshifters, responding to gravity and tension. This time I created two den-like spaces, with a doorway between them. One of them had an entrance at each end so could be walked through; the smaller one had just one entrance. I was especially thrilled that through the doorway there was a short corridor with 3 changing cubicles with mirrors. I hung three of my sculptures in these. I thought they looked stunning, each framed in a secret, mirrored space. However, I think that possibly many people missed them as they were not in the main room, but that's fine. I really like the ephemoral nature of site-responsive installations in unexpected places! Each iteration is just a moment in the life of the shapeshifting sculpture... and I find it exciting.
I decided to leave all the additions from Shepton on the big net and install it like that. It made it much harder to set up because of the weight, but I feel as it it becomes a virtual conversation as its set up in one place after another. The new, smaller den was bare when we opened in Weston. Both net dens changed more dramatically in Weston than they had in Shepton, maybe because they were more open and the outsides were more accessible. Many more labels and pompoms were added too.... although, of course, most people wanted to take their pompoms away with them!
I think that because this space was so long and narrow it was less visually interesting overall as an exhibition, but we still had large numbers of visitors, many of whom were passers-by and some who came back multiple times. Many people stayed a long time and joined in with a number of the activities. The many labels on my dens, plus the more formal feedback, show how visitors appreciated different aspects of the installations - the space, making together, chilling time, conversation, kindness amongst other things...as well as the art itself!