Art Idol 2010

I have been selected to appear on 'Art Idol 2010' this year with Marsha Bradfield. Stay tuned for more news...

Gadjee Collective Presents "Hackney Wickipedia"

FRI 30 JUL - SAT 31 JUL - SUN 01 AUG

"Hackney Wickipedia" is a group show which celebrates the Hackney Wick, touching on many random and dispersed historical facts upon which it has been founded and developed. Over the last few years it has regenerated, becoming a cultural magnet for creative individuals who have moved into the area, forming a community for themselves, making use of the industrial space and the resourc...es it has to offer. This show comprises a group of artists from many different nationalities, backgrounds, cultures and identities who are outsiders of Hackney Wick itself. Each artist responds to Hackney Wick through their artwork with reference to either the history and/or the contemporary culture, relative to their own artistic interpretations. Their artistic media is: painting, drawing, sculpture, site-specific art, photography, video, performance and installation.

The Gadjee Collective is a group of emerging artists based mostly in London, but who hail from many different backgrounds or nations, including France, Canada, Germany, Poland and Britain. Their creative backgrounds are varied, but many of the artists study or studied at internationally renowned Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

The collective was formed with the idea of mobility at its core, with the artists planning exhibitions in different European cities, responding to each place in a different way and with their own unique perspective. To date, the collective has organized, curated and created original work for three exhibitions, the first in London at the Rag Factory, with subsequent exhibitions in Dublin and Barcelona. The Hackney Wicked Festival is the perfect opportunity for the collective to turn its talents to London once again.

More Info: http://hackneywickipedia.blogspot.com/

Exibiting artists:
* Uli Blanchet (Ger)
* Tonga Schneider (GR) & Aurore Pelisson (FR)
* Sydney Southam (CAN)
* Roman Skyva (CZ)
* Matthew Miles (UK)
* Leo Cohen (UK)
* Konrad Wyrebek (POL)
* Hélène Butler (FR)
* Charlotte Kaye (UK)
* Charles Garcin (FR)
* Caroline LS Chang (UK)
* Anja Priska (Ger)
* Alix Marie (FR)
* Alice Walter (UK)

"If you’re unable to embrace all cultural forms that human kind has produced: you cannot embrace all of human kind, or establish socialism. The idea of difference goes beyond a mere concept of tolerance. Socialism has to ‘grow’...it has to grow from the diversity of human beings and cultures that make up humanity." ---- G. Kuhn

I will respond to Hackney Wick through its history and also its current day multi-cultural community by creating a sculptural based installation that links to the sociological philosophy of Niklas Luhman and economic philosophies of socialism.
A large suspended cloud made out of recycled plastic materials, found object and money hangs above smaller sculptures of people. Each person has different signifiers, working titles/identities, religions or classes. Chains dropping down from the cloud are attached to each person suggesting people are all locked into one of many things: be it the system, community, society, environment, money, belief, God and/or many other concepts and other things that are not tangible. It not only represents something chaotic, but also perhaps something spiritual. A source of all things!

Since “the world's first true synthetic plastic, Parkesine, invented by Alexander Parkes was manufactured in the Wick from 1866 to 1868”; I have chosen to make the clouds predominantly out of recycled plastics. My materials are non-elitist (part of my own work ethics) and I relate these materials to themes of Hackney’s industry and class in a fluxist interpretation.

They couldn't stop me in the first heat, so in the end they drugged my tea. I will become invincible rising above them and their politics which surrounds the blow. I will never give up or give in to them. Each blow they deliver makes me grow tenfold in strength.

My life seems to be filled with people wanting me to tick boxes all the time, conform to one thing or another. But I'm happy to say that I don't fit the mould that 'they' tried to steer me towards. I'm not shallow, vain, nor am I a teachers pet. I'm not afraid to speak out on the things which matter to me. I made my own valid decisions.

This isn’t arrogance, and do not confuse this with ego, this is pride! Too many cemeteries are full of unfinished business and I vow never to take mine to the grave as well.

I'm glad this year has been tough, it has shaped me in ways I can never imagine, prepared me for many difficulties in the future. I count them all as blessings in disguise and move on to a new world that is rough, tough, but one that I am already familiar with.