Carolyn Kruger - Translocation and Dislocation (words by Natalie Low)

Welcome to the Translocation and Dislocation exhibition, a selection of eclectic artworks that have been placed or screened beyond the tradition gallery walls. Alongside the art, you can read written works by our First Responders. We will choose a different location for each artwork, the art might be placed in a complementary location (to add to the narrative) or juxtaposed against a competing backdrop to create new meaning.

Our first artwork comes from Carolyn Kruger, a piece of her jigsaw dangles down, inviting Totteridge walkers to complete it. Or perhaps the passers-by like that it's incomplete. A gentle reminder of something they must remember, or something lost, that needs to found.

Carolyn Kruger

 

First Responder: Natalie Low

Missing piece, an incomplete

Missing peace, beat no retreat

Missing peas, pulse ate in beat

(Words are sweet and neat)

Missing Peke, a lack of dog,

Missing peak, high level fog,

Missing peek, nil eyes agog,

(Words as analogues) 

Missing pee, a urine freeze 

Missing peat, spare that bog please

Missing pizza, zero cheese

(Words please, seize and tease)

------------------------------------------

Carolyn Kruger

Carolyn is an art psychotherapist and communications designer. For many years, the focus of her work has been supporting people from migrant and refugee backgrounds. She currently lives in Berlin, Germany.

Natalie Low is a creative knitter, stitcher and quilter. She lives in London, UK with her charming family. She has published two chapbooks Dementia (2015) and School Run (2017).

Tamara Jelaca - Little House in Prairie



Tamara's Little House in Prairie

Welcome to the Dwell exhibition and book. For a whole month we will be taking each artist's page and transforming it into a 3 dimensional dwelling. Each one of these small sculptures will be exhibited in public on the London streets.

Noahs Arc Wheres my Dearest

Detail from Net

Our final Net, on the first day of March, comes from Tamara Jelača.
One of the most exciting aspects of Collect Connect is the contact we make with people all over the world. Today we have a wonderfully dynamic little sculpture from the Serbian Artist Tamara Jelača.
Tamara recently exhibited with us at the Fab Fridge Exhibition in Bath. A quick look at Tamara's recent group shows reveals that she is prolific and hard working artists with a specialism in embroidery.

Cloud

Tamara writes on her web site,
'Embroidery for me is a kind of meditation. The process is slow, the drawing is showing up slowly. I love the fact that I can touch and feel the line. Each line gives me enough time to think and discover what the process itself means to me. Oddly enough, at the same time my embroidery is fast. It is a picture of my thoughts that develops slowly on a piece of fabric. Each finished piece is for me the revelation and tangible moment of my personal history'(http://www.tamarajelaca.com/artist-statement/#)

We placed 'Little House in Prairie' along the canal path at Mile End on a windy day. The threads hanging from Tamara's cloud whipped around in the breeze, each thread tracing a contour in the air to make an ever changing drawing of the wind.

Don't forget to have a look at the next Collect Connect project, 'The Art of Caring' exhibition at The Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. The theme is Caring/Care and it is FREE to enter.

 

To buy the Dwell Book for £6 then follow this LINK

Steve DT - Sistene Chapel

Steve DT's Sistene Chapel near The Bank of England

Welcome to the Dwell exhibition and book. For a whole month we will be taking each artist's page and transforming it into a 3 dimensional dwelling. Each one of these small sculptures will be exhibited in public on the London streets.

 

Today we have Steve DT's Sistene Chapel.

Steve DT has been a regular exhibitor with Collect Connect- last showing with us on the streets of Bath for The Fab Fridge Exhibition.

Steve is a celebrated erotic artist.

'As an erotic photographer, I attempt to bring a fresh perspective layered with social content to familiar subjects. Part of the inspiration is derived from the sex industry and its many facets, the rest is intuitive.' http://www.worldphoto.org/profile/stevedt

 

Detail of Steve's net

For the Dwell exhibition Steve created the Sistene Chapel, 'a place to relax and contemplate' which is dedicated to St Raphael: the patron saint of love, lovers and happy meetings (Dwell page 57). Steve's net is the only one dedicated to the erotic nature of dwelling in the Dwell book and his title 'The Sistene Chapel' suggests that the erotic is worthy of praise and veneration.

  

We placed Steve's Chapel near to the Bank of England in the city of London an altogether different 'chapel' dedicated not to the pleasures of the flesh but perhaps to the worship of money. There is of course a clear link between money and the erotic with reference to the global sex industry and these are the charged areas that Steve explores through his art.

 

Don't forget to have a look at the next Collect Connect project, 'The Art of Caring' exhibition at The Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. The theme is Caring/Care and it is FREE to enter.

To buy the Dwell Book for £6 then follow this LINK

Sabatin Bascoban - Caravan

Sabatin Basocban's Caravan

 

Welcome to the Dwell exhibition and book. For a whole month we will be taking each artist's page and transforming it into a 3 dimensional dwelling. Each one of these small sculptures will be exhibited in public on the London streets.


This Wednesday morning we focus on Sabatin Bascoban's perfect caravan.
We were delighted to receive this net from Sabatin who has been a regular exhibitor with Collect Connect over the years.
 
Sabatin studied in Hannover and now teaches and has his art practice on the South coast of England at Southsea and Portsmouth. 
As a sculptor Sabatin writies that he is interested in the transformations that his art works undergo as they start off as functional objects and become, through the creative process, impractical or unusable. Fortunately for us his net stays true to its function of creating a tidy touring caravan. The caravan fits nicely with Sabatin's statement that,

'Travel and mobility are recurring motifs in my work. It is an exciting experience to, all of a sudden, wake up to a previously unknown life and live in a foreign surrounding with a different set of rules. There is even a chance that the traveller returns as a different person!' www.sabatin.co.uk/statement.html


Caravan detail of the net

We parked Sabatin's caravan in a flower bed in the City of London. The touring caravan conjures up memories of family holidays, many spent on the South coast of England. The caravan is also an important dwelling in it's own right for many people around the world such as Traveller and Gypsy communities as well itinerant workers.

 
 
Don't forget to have a look at the next Collect Connect project, 'The Art of Caring' exhibition at The Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. The theme is Caring/Care and it is FREE to enter.

To buy the Dwell Book for £6 then follow this LINK

DR.

Nick Gammons - Castle

Castle in front of the Tower of London

Welcome to the Dwell exhibition and book. For a whole month we will be taking each artist's page and transforming it into a 3 dimensional dwelling. Each one of these small sculptures will be exhibited in public on the London streets

Nick Gammons' Castle

Today we return to the Tower to find Nick Gammon's own castle in front of London's ancient riverside palace.
This is Nick's first time exhibiting with Collect Connect and he has created a classic little sculpture of a Keep and Castle Wall.
Nick is an enthusiastic sports fan and I am sure he is stinging from England's recent poor form in the Cricket World Cup.
Having played for many years alongside Nick for Old Eastcotians Cricket Club I can sympathise with England's recent disastrous games, Nick and I were ourselves party to a few spectacular batting collapses!

Nick's sculpture  reminds me of his love of all things Lego and I am sure he and his family are adept at building castles in plastic brick form as well as in paper.
It is tempting to set Nick's castle up against Melanie's Caer Hecsagon but here at Collect Connect we are much more interested in cooperation and collaboration so we have avoided any potential siege situations between the two.
DR

Don't forget to have a look at the next Collect Connect project, 'The Art of Caring' exhibition at The Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. The theme is Caring/Care and it is FREE to enter.

To buy the Dwell Book for £6 then follow this LINK

Melanie Ezra - Caer Hecsagon

Caer Hecsagon in front of the Tower of London

Welcome to the Dwell exhibition and book. For a whole month we will be taking each artist's page and transforming it into a 3 dimensional dwelling. Each one of these small sculptures will be exhibited in public on the London streets.

Today's sculpture comes from Melanie Ezra, a frequent exhibitor with Collect Connect and active participant in Collect Connect exhibitions.



Structured Chaos’ 12″ x 12″ layered paper

'Melanie Ezra is a UK-based fine artist who works using her own original photographs to create beautiful and intricate collages. She often works in series, providing visual responses to external stimuli such as literature, science, and music. She considers herself a specialist in the deconstruction of time and the extension of the moment.'
http://melanieezra.com


On Melanie's website we read that she is currently exploring the world of theoretical physics with its sub atomic particles and string theory; a world of quantum uncertainty where probability rules supreme and where the simple act of viewing irrevocably changes the thing being viewed. One can get a sense of this from the first art work in Melanie's 'Structured Chaos' series, pictured here. The image is alive with strings which seem to seethe in mind boggling complexity. At the same time we can resolve this highly energetic and dynamic image to see a serene landscape which suggests solitude and peacefulness. If we try seeing both at the same time perhaps we get a glimpse of the paradoxical nature of the quantum universe.

Melanie's net 'Caer Hecsagon' is a tiny castle complete with outer wall, keep and portcullis. It belongs to a time when stone walls and a company or two of pike men and bowmen provided a statement of security and power (or fear and oppression). Such concrete certainties are no longer so easy to come by and I wonder what the modern version of the castle is.

We photographed Caer Hecsagon (we love the name!) in front of the Tower of London which is  one of the oldest palaces in Europe and remains, to this day, a symbol of power in the heart of London.

Don't forget to have a look at the next Collect Connect project, 'The Art of Caring' exhibition at The Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. The theme is Caring/Care and it is FREE to enter.

To buy the Dwell Book for £6 then follow this LINK
.

Holly Daniels - Fairy Dwelling




Holly Daniels Fairy Dwelling

Welcome to the Dwell exhibition and book. For a whole month we will be taking each artist's page and transforming it into a 3 dimensional dwelling. Each one of these small sculptures will be exhibited in public on the London streets.

Our twelfth Dwell sculpture, 'Fairy Dwelling' comes from Holly Daniels. Holly has previously exhibited with Collect Connect in the Freed Book in 2013. Holly's story for The Freed Book is titled, 'Have I got News For You' and presents a satirical narrative. Holly continued in a similar vein with 'Warnings & Ransoms' for the Patternotion Book also 2013. For this publication Holly wrote,



Have I got News For You (Detail)

"I know that the cartoons I produce won't change anyone's political opinion; at best a cartoon enlightens and provokes debate, at worst events have moved on by the time of publication and the cartoon makes little sense at all. From my own perspective, these cartoons are my way of trying to reclaim a little bit of control in a world in which democratic choice is limited and power is put into the hands of the few who aren't necessarily concerned for the many...." (Holly Daniels, Patternotion 2013).

One can't help but be reminded of the recent extremities that satirical cartoons can provoke in today's world.

 

For the Dwell book Holly has provided us with something quite different. Fairy Dwelling is a delicate paper sculpture complete with a tiny swing and window.

I love how the tiny swing makes the dwelling seem large enough to live inside, a clever use of size and scale in keeping with our belief in the diminutive size of fairies.



Fairy Dwelling near the Thames

Holly's photo (above) shows Fairy Dwelling made out of patterned and textured paper and we can see how carefully made this sculpture is (it takes a steady hand to make Holly's sculpture as well as we see here).
 

We  placed Fairy Dwelling on the North bank of The Thames near London Bridge. We found this richly coloured and textured industrial remnant on which to put the sculpture - perhaps a Dwelling for an industrial fairy or two!
 

We were also enjoying playing with the swing like quality of the crane compared to the miniscule swing in Holly's Dwelling.
 Don't forget to have a look at the next Collect Connect project, 'The Art of Caring' exhibition at The Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. The theme is Caring/Care and it is FREE to enter.

To buy the Dwell Book for £6 then follow this LINK.

DR



Gavin Blackhurst - 46 Malbet Park

Welcome to the Dwell exhibition and book. For a whole month we will be taking each artist's page and transforming it into a 3 dimensional dwelling. Each one of these small sculptures will be exhibited in public on the London streets.

46 Malbet Park

Today we have Gavin's pristine sculpture, 46 Malbet Park. This is the first time that Gavin has exhibited with Collect Connect and we extend a very warm welcome to him.
Gavin's is the most precise net that we have in the Dwell book and his instructions are equally clear. This photo of the completed net was sent to us by Gavin, we challenge you to make the net as carefully as this!

As Gavin is new to Collect Connect we do not know a lot about him. However we like to have a guess and we wonder if Gavin is an architect. I have had a look at google maps and Gavin's net is accurate enough for me to reckon I can see the house in Malbet Park, Edinburgh. This makes 46 Malbet Park unique to Dwell as it is the only accurate model of an actual house in the book.

In this photo we can see 46 Malbet Park nestled in a metal grill opposite the Monument in the City of London. The Monument remembers the Great Fire of London in 1666 and, like so much of post-fire London, is designed by Christopher Wren (and Robert Hooke the natural philosopher).
Gavin's sculpture brings a little bit of the Scottish Capital Edinburgh onto the streets of London and reminds me of how ubiquitous dwelling is. It also reminds me of how many people the Great Fire of London must have made homeless.

Don't forget to have a look at the next Collect Connect project, 'The Art of Caring' exhibition at The Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. The theme is Caring/Care and it is FREE to enter.

To buy the Dwell Book for £6 then follow this LINK.

DR

Catherine Wynne-Paton - Raft at Sea



Catherine Wynne-Paton - Raft at Sea

Welcome to the Dwell exhibition and book. For a whole month we will be taking each artist's page and transforming it into a 3 dimensional dwelling. Each one of these small sculptures will be exhibited in public on the London streets.

Today we are cast adrift with Catherine's Raft at Sea.

Catherine has recently graduated from Hereford College of Art and we are very pleased to welcome her back for her second Collect Connect exhibition.

courtesy of http://www.wynnepaton.co.uk/

Catherine's work 'explores the gap between random and meaningful, centred on text, seeking to locate the liminal place when meaningful becomes random'.(http://www.wynnepaton.co.uk/)

 This image, taken from Catherine's web site, suggests something on the verge of being recognised, either a representation on the way to becoming seen or a form that is disintegrating or dissolving. I find this visual tension appealing.


Raft at sea is likewise a very appealing piece of work. I particularly like the simplicity of the net. The detail here shows the net for the logs for the raft. It is hard to imagine from the flat net how the neat little raft comes about until one has a go at building it.

Here we can sea Raft at Sea on the Regents Canal at Kings Cross.
This area of London has undergone massive redevelopment recently including the canal area and both Kings Cross and St Pancras International railway stations.
The raft proved to be surprisingly buoyant and floated quite happily in the somewhat murky canal water before eventually becoming waterlogged and needing rescuing!

Don't forget to have a look at the next Collect Connect project, 'The Art of Caring' exhibition at The Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. The theme is Caring/Care and it is FREE to enter.

To buy the Dwell Book for £6 then follow this LINK.



Catherine Wynne-Paton - Raft at Sea

Bryan Benge - Cityscape



Bryan Benge Cityscape

Welcome to the Dwell exhibition and book. For a whole month we will be taking each artist's page and transforming it into a 3 dimensional dwelling. Each one of these small sculptures will be exhibited in public on the London streets.
 



London Bridge

Our third sculpture, 'Cityscape' is by Bryan Benge.  He has been an exhibiting artist since the 1970's and is a regular exhibitor with Collect Connect as well as organising Collect Connect exhibitions (The Future Bound). Bryan is a member of The London Group and a Lecturer of Art and Design. One of the great pleasures of being involved with Collect Connect is working alongside Bryan.

Bryan is currently working on 'Episodic Schemata', a series of surreal images in which space and form are somehow twisted together to create disconcerting feelings of vertigo and where narratives never quite come into focus.

Cityscape gives us the possibility of reinventing the capital's famous skyline. Why not have Big Ben East of London Bridge and have the Bridge itself spanning Bermondsey rather than straddling Old Father Thames?
 



The Shard

We photographed Cityscape in front of the grandiose glass spike 'The Shard' by architect Renzo Piano. One wonders how Bryan's reimagined skyline would look against the backdrop of one of London's famous Parks or a busy shopping street on a Saturday afternoon?   DR


Don't forget to have a look at the next Collect Connect project, 'The Art of Caring' exhibition at The Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. The theme is Caring/Care and it is FREE to enter.

To buy the Dwell Book for £6 then follow this LINK.