Angela Malone - Social Advent 4

Cardboard City no.4

Another day sees us opening another Social Advent and after Monday's big reveal of 'Ang McDonald we move a little further along the river (west) to the well populated Westminster bridge area to release our 4th artist.

4th Release - along The Queens Walk

Angela was born in Brooklyn, New York, 1957. Having taught and exhibited for a number of years, returning to education when she moved into Sculpture in 2007. Her work is based firmly in the genre of portraiture but looks closely at the Curatorial aspects of displays, referencing her own drawings, particularly the ones from life. Sketchbook and graphic works are central to her practice leading the way to finished works, which usually evolve from sketches into stone carvings plaster works or ceramics, often integrating elements of text within or alongside the piece.

Augustine No.9 by Angela Malone

Angela's career already has many strands to it - ranging from acclaimed accolades such as receiving the Niagara Falls Award in 2009, Thomas Fattorini Award in 2010 and having permanent collections in Germany, the USA and Austria.

That's 4 advents already launched and we've still got many more artworks to come from our global net of selected artists.

I'm back again tomorrow thanks to fellow Collect Connect artist, curator and Fridge Magnet guru; Alban Low, stepping in to help me out with the 3rd Social Advent the other day! Where will we end up this time and who'll be behind advent no.5….?


SJS

Dean Reddick - Flatpack Art Therapy

The good thing about being in a collective is that interesting exhibitions like this one seem to spring up from nowhere but have obviously been gestating for a long period. It is also convenient when there is a change in plan. So while Stuart has been called away on urgent business I've been thrown into the breach and that is where we find our 3rd Social Advent door today.

Queen Elizabeth Hall
Southbank

Nestled in the side of Waterloo Bridge and just behind the Queen Elizabeth Hall we find Dean Reddick's first submission to the Cardboard City exhibition, 'House Advent No.1".

Dean Reddick - House Advent No.1

Dean Reddick has been an integral member of our community since the first magnet exhibition, 'Open Fridge' at Gallery 89 in Barnet, 2010 and he's been a loyal organiser and participant ever since. He has an eclectic portfolio of work for his day job which revolves around his practice as an Art Therapist and tutor at Goldsmiths College. As a curator his Hidebird exhibition is often the talk of Walthamstow when the E17 Art Trail is in full swing. His art practice is usually inspired by nature and he can be found regularly at the foot of the huge trees in Epping Forest.

Dean Reddick

Despite Dean's interest in Nature or quite possibly because of it, he possesses an addiction to mathematics. As a student I remember his work at Coventry School of Art & Design being heavily influenced by mathematical nets and it seems this passion has not left him. When I view the work for Cardboard City, I see the flatpack world of desirability and IKEA. Here is something we all seem to obsess about, quite rightly so when we consider the emotive qualities of a home, but should we be bartering, gambling and gazumping with such zeal. A week doesn't go by at the moment without the News reporting that our society's financial wellbeing is improving because house prices continue to climb.

Maybe the image is something much simpler, a child's view of a house, which we could make with a roll of Sellotape and scissors. I do know that this may be the advent of a new exhibition for Dean Reddick and hopefully one that he will run with CollectConnect in 2014.

Keep 'em peel'd for a double header from Stuart Simler over the next two days, numbers 4 and 5 on the way.

AL.

Andrew 'Ang' McDonald - Social Advent 2

Cardboard City #2 - beside Big Ben

Yesterday we kicked off the Cardboard City exhibition with the work of Bryan Benge beside The London Eye. Today we're taking a walk round the corner to install our second door in the shadow of another national landmark.



'King Lear' by Ang McDonald

Time to open the door!

This is Andrew 'Ang' Mcdonald 's response to the theme of 'Social Advent'.
McDonald has been exhibiting with us since our first ever Street Art exhibition in 2010 and has been a steady contributor ever since. He is best known for his mural work from the early Noughties, which saw the enterprising painter travel the world leaving his modern frescoed calling card on a variety of continents. It seems he hasn't shaken off the travel bug either and now resides in Belgium where amongst other interests he runs language courses for Brussel's NATO glitterati.

Social Advent #2

Literature, History and Storytelling are the cornerstones of Andrew 'Ang' Mcdonald's work, and here he transposes the tragedy of William Shakespeare's 'King Lear' into the modern realm. The themes of Mcdonald's 'Lear' also run parallel to those of the original Cardboard City for this is a play that is famous for its probing observations on the nature of human suffering and kinship.

Tomorrow, curator Stuart Simler opens the third door!
Keep 'em peel'd

AL.

Cardboard City Advent - First Artwork Released!!

The first day of the month sees the official release of our first Christmas Advent Artwork!

The first release - somewhere near the Millennium Eye. (details below)

Congratulations and thank you to all of the artists who have contributed your creative interpretations of the Cardboard City brief to this all inclusive open air exhibition!

We have successfully begun to release the artworks into our society - but this wasn't quite as straight forward as we first thought it would be…

…Having informed Southwark Police of our all embracing community intentions we received a very curt and stern warning of the potential repercussions of our proposed actions. These included; possible arrest for littering, for causing a bomb scare and subsequent evacuations of local schools/businesses, which we would be held accountable with payment for costs incurred….The list goes on!

With this warning in mind and with the even stronger purpose for our inclusive message to be shared with the wider community we set upon re-designing our 'cardboard city' boxes to fulfil our mission statements whilst maintaining the peace, if only until the last minute Christmas shoppers run between the Southbank and shopping heaven on the other side of the river.

Alban and I set about releasing our artists Social Advent messages into the community: 

'On the 1st day of Christmas our cardboard city artist gave us:  'Boxed In' 

Bryan Benge - shares his piece with us:



Boxed In - Bryan Benge

Bryan's current working practice is informed by an investigation into the use of LTM (Long Term Memory), particularly episodic memory/schemata that refer to specific events in time (autobiographical).

My reading is at an early stage but already has introduced me to the concept of MTT ( Mental Time Travel), the ability to mentally project oneself in time to relive past experiences, (or future ones). In somewhat of a paradox It is past experiences/memory that preoccupy me at the present time. MTT is a concept being investigated by Canadian Psychologist Endel Turvig.
 

I think Bryans piece adds an interesting dimension to the original themes, considering how our mind and memory can create its own sense of space or containment. 

 

Keep 'em peel'd for another release tomorrow (Monday 2nd)….

SJS

Cardboard City - Call Out

Deadline Closed at 11pm 15/11/2013

Welcome to a new opportunity and exhibition from artist, educator and curator Stuart Simler. This is the fourth exhibition from CollectConnect and once again a new face brings a fresh perspective on the group exhibition genre. Read all about the exhibition/intervention and call-out below, visit the submit page right for all the details, then quite simply get involved.

 'Cardboard City saw the UK's largest collection of homeless people gather in the underpasses of Waterloo, London. Using whatever they could find to house themselves, individuals created a space that would temporarily house them in the short term. As a result of this and because of one common purpose they had become part of a community. Whether this was a cohesive one, we don't know but it raises the question of community spirit and oneness within societies everywhere and never more so than in the glittering chaos that is our lead up the festive season.'

Artists are asked to respond to the this excerpt above and address the main theme -

Social Advent

and to consider the wider ideas of  

'Community & Society...a sense of Belonging' and '

Cardboard City - a throw away Home'

The artwork will be housed in a makeshift cardboard box and released during the lead up to Christmas starting with the first cluster on the 1st December and then daily up until Christmas Eve, 24th December. The trail will begin somewhere near the site of Cardboard City and lead along the Southbank where the final release of artworks will find fruition at the doors of the Tate Modern

 on Christmas Eve. We will be open the doors of the boxes daily and publish the images on the website and twitter @collectconnect4.

Artwork should be created to the following dimensions: 7 x 7 cm and emailed through to: collectconnect4@gmail.com images no larger than 1MB.

Deadline for entries - Friday 15th November (11pm)

Of course any questions please get in touch with Stuart at the email address above and he will endeavour to help you out.

Future Bound Book and Exhibition

Future Bound -
Lucy Carasco (left) and
Elli Abernethy (right)

After months of hard work by the students at UCA Epsom's Diploma in Art & Design- Foundation Studies and the Pre-U Level Diploma not only is their Final Exhibition on the horizon but this fantastic book. The Future Bound book has now arrived in the Sampson Low Ltd offices and we are very excited about releasing it into the world.

Just like the students who will be graduating to bigger and better things in the months to come, we hope the Future Bound book will do the same in art circles. Heralding the arrival of a new crop of artistic talent on the creative scene.

If you would like to buy a copy then we have 30 first editions available on Amazon, just follow this link - BUY FUTURE BOUND

In due course the publisher will also carry them on their site.
www.sampsonlow.com

If you would like to see who appears in the book itself then visit the Future Bound website -
www.thefuturebound.blogspot.co.uk

Laura Matthews (front)
Alice Firman, Rosie Howe and Elisabeth Lewis (Back)

The students worked together with the 4 artists from CollectConnect - Stuart Simler, Bryan Benge, Alban Low and Dean Reddick. The project was devised to give the students an early experience of working and submitting their work in a professional capacity.

The ISBN for the book is 978-0-9534712-2-5 and this allowed us to attach several students names to the code but not unfortunately all. Laura Matthews provided the excellent front cover image and we chose her and two others, Charlotte Harris and Natasha Skliar-Ward (randomly) to be the book's authors. The back cover artists, Alice Firman, Rosie Howe and Elisabeth Lewis were accredited with illustrator credits. We had to select 3 of the 4 CollectConnect to be editors too, but all have played their part and we are grateful to the work they had done behind the scenes.

Future Bound magnet exhibition

The Final Exhibition of all the students' work with be on Tuesday 4th June, 5-8pm at UCA Epsom.
As well as some of the books to flick through, we'll have the 65 copies for the artists to pick up/take home and an exhibition of all their work. Not your normal exhibit, these will be in the form of 70 magnets on a fridge door. Come and say hello on the day and experience this insightful and original book.

AL.

CollectConnect back to their roots

Its time to get back out there!
We're all busy at the moment in our individual professional practices. but true to form we want to still go that extra mile. So we're going back to college, quite literally, to launch a project with the 300+ students on UCA Epsom's Diploma in Art & Design Foundation Studies and Pre-U Level 3 Diploma.
The project will initially be a book that asks all the students to look into their future and hopefully result in a 'live' art experience somewhere in the public domain.

The project is being co-ordinated by Bryan Benge. Who is also currently exhibiting at the London Group's Centenary Exhibition at the PM Gallery, Ealing until the 9th March.
http://www.thelondongroup.com/

Check out our progress at www.thefuturebound.blogspot.com

FreedBook launched in London

One small step for artists, one giant leap for FreedBook!
Yesterday (24/11/2012) an intrepid band of artists reached all 4 corners of  London's transport compass. Over 80 miles was traversed on foot, buses, trains and a tram, where we delivered 7 freedbooks into the Books For London libraries.
The 6 hours zipped-by in a frantic and fun journey with plenty of chatting and swappping ideas.
We started at Acton Central where myself, Natalie, Effie and Jess met Robert Good, Peter S Smith, Dean Reddick, Chris Gilson and the local Bookswap rep Sara Nathan.
We picked up Ella Penn at Ealing Broadway and Books For London founder Chris Gilson gave us an inspirational Henry V style speech on the bridge at West Ealing before retreating to his HQ.
Heading towards Enfield Chase we picked up Melanie Ezra and Dan Leek at Kings Cross. After finding a suitable phonebox to release FreedBook No.3 our number swelled with the arrival of Sonia Jarema.
A few peeled off in Central London as we headed east to Charlton (pic above), but we we're bolstered by Stephanie Wilkinson and Stuart Simler and several hundred fans on the their way to the Charlton vs Hudddersfield match.
Next to the boundary of our Travelcard's reach at Coulsdon South where we found that the Bookswap shelf had disappeared. The station manager helped us and we found a suitable coffee table in the waiting area to launch book No.5.
On the last lap we reached Wimbledon station by tram and rendezvoused with Chris Gilson once again and then a short hop to Raynes Park where we delivered our final FreedBook of the day.
After 6 hours of travelling we gratefully returned home to wine and tea, with a special space in our hearts for London's Transport system and its employees who never let us down! Every train on time!

Keep an eye out for our next exhibition by Brian Benge.

To buy a copy of the freedbook then visit http://www.freedbook.blogspot.co.uk

To view who was featured in the book visit the Artists page on the right.

Alban

CollectConnect release FreedBook

We're proud to present our first publication as a group. The FreedBook.
68 One-page stories from 50+ artists.

We'll be releasing our books into the Books For London libraries on the 24th November. So come and pick one up for FREE. More information on our launch on the Freedbook Website page.

If you would like to buy a copy then click on this link BUY  or visit the Sampson Low website.

To see which artists are featured in the FreedBook then visit our Artists page and find links to their websites.

The next CollectConnect exhibition will be organised by Bryan Benge in early 2013.

Thank you to all the artists involved.
Alban