Day Three of the Plymouth Arts Weekender 2017: Barbican, Athenaeum, and Union Street

I'm writing this the night after the events in question because, just like this time last year, I was mentally exhausted, and couldn't have put in the amount of effort I have done nor done the various artists the justice they deserve. So here, at last, is the final installment for your delectation.

NB: as this article was written in collaboration with Plymouth University's SU: Media online magazine, some editing has been done which I have applied (in places).

In true Plymouthian spirit, the last day of the Arts Weekender was another damp one, but yours truly mustered the determination to don wellies and raincoat, and go forth.

First port of call was to the Plymouth Arts Centre’s small Batter Street space which artist Jules Varnedoe had transformed into a cocoon of natural awareness for his installation Anthrosoluble Dispersion. Invasive plant species hung vacuum-sealed from the walls, a small display case of plastic drawn from the sea stood opposite another of sheep’s wool and fertiliser, while a video shot beneath the waves revealed a shoal of plastic waste. The sound of the rain outside gently bled into those waves, turning this into a fully immersive, yet minimalist installation. I almost didn’t want to leave; I had found a place where art was doing what it did best: opening people’s eyes to the truth. Unfortunately, my expedition was not over so I had to leave in search of the curiously titled I Don’t Believe Birmingham Exists by Adrián Bishop at Studio 102. Based on a statement from the New Scientist Magazine that ‘Nine out of ten people hold a delusional belief’, the exhibition greeted me with several psychedelic faces, most were sporting inane grins and wild red eyes, and illustrating their own real-life delusional beliefs in indelible ink, as if to symbolise the permanence of such philosophies. Wandering the small space, each bold statement seemed more deranged than the last, encouraging me to see that Adrián’s work does what we should all be doing, which is challenging those beliefs.

Having had my eyes opened a little wider to the world, I took a brief hot-chocolate-based interlude at the Boston Tea Party before continuing, this time to the Athenaeum for What Does Not Respect. This three-piece installation led me into the secret disused tunnel beneath the building where I found some curious sights:

Indistinct faces and figures gazing out of the cracked walls, an allusion to the ephemerality of photography courtesy of Katie Upton.

A deflated pool of bread dough on which artist Louise Riou-Djukic had previously lain for her performance ‘Eat Me Eat You’, an homage to the media’s obsession with female dieting and how food consumes us.

A stark canvas creation sitting at the end of the tunnel, gradually dripping icy meltwater into a sling below, dreamed up by Lisa Davison to conceptualise the ‘liminal period experienced during a rite of passage’, this being motherhood. 

If these pieces were removed from the tunnel, they would not have had the same impact. They interacted with all the senses to create an unsettling state of limbo. It came as something of a relief then to ascend to the Athenaeum once again, if only to peer into Rhys Morgan’s Platform, an audio-visual collage dealing with the media and the ‘claustrophobic isolation’ that comes with misunderstanding it. After a brief period watching videos being searched and buffered and layered, everything suddenly cut out – I never discovered why. However, from one installation about exclusion, I found myself moving to one of inclusion: Night Light by Jack Carberry-Todd (part of Transitional Assemblage) at the nightclub The Factory. Inside the unassuming venue were hypnotic, disorienting spirals and diffuse, unsettling shapes on the walls, brought to life under UV lighting to create ‘the techno sublime’, an experience one could only fully appreciate while dancing in this space after dark. Regardless of the lack of sensory overload, I still felt a part of the installation as the pages of my notebook began to fluoresce.

Returning to the Athenaeum, I sat in on Mark Leahy’s Threaded Insert, part of the Tears in Rain installation. As I waited for activity on the stage before me, a disembodied voice spoke from above, counting out steps, spelling out words, and describing exact location. After a short while, the speaker himself appeared in the doorway, showing himself to be taking orders from an mp3 headset. His steps continued despite any obstacles which meant he would climb over chairs or off the stage, and the words were spelled by touching corresponding parts of his body. It was a bizarre spectacle, deriving its content from ‘proper’ speech and conduct guides, and often repeating itself or being stopped partway through by new instructions, as if to emphasise the control this system had over the artist. I realised that the Weekend was similarly taking control over me, my hunger for discovering art meant I neglected my hunger for food. I decided to search for something to eat before I could wrap things up at the Union Street Afterparty. 

Having refuelled at The Bank nearby – and unsuccessfully refused free cake at the Athenaeum – I made it to Union Corner. On the bill was:

Sam Richards: a London-born folk/jazz artist who wanted us to know that everything we do is, one way or another, political

Simon Travers: creator of the Stackhouse Jones Project, this local poet’s haunting tones served up a bizarre reminder of the real world

Lola Beal: The Mayflower 400 Young City Laureate took us through her thoughts on poetry and the work she did to gain her coveted position

Richard Thomas: a surrealistic beatnik poet who gave us a brief glimpse into the anxieties of fatherhood and what it’s like to never run out of soup

Thom Boulton and Daniel Morgan a.k.a. Blaidh and Sounde: a duo who’d give Tenacious D a run for their money brought folklore humorously to life, especially when dealing with one angry ogre’s seagull vendetta

And lastly, only just making it to the Afterparty in time from his slot at Tears in Rain, was Mo Bottomley: when someone walks on stage wearing false eyelashes and clutching a handful of paper strips which all begin with the word ‘pants’, you know there can be no better way to end the night. Or the entire Arts Weekender for that matter. I hope you enjoyed it too.

Day Two of the Plymouth Arts Weekender 2017: Town and Millbay

Today did not disappoint in the quantity of stuff I managed to cram into 7 hours, and I'm sure my pedometer is sitting in the five digits region I've done so much walking. But it feels good to be engaging with this city in such a rewarding way. I hope I have done these installations even half the justice they deserve.

NB: as this article was written in collaboration with Plymouth University's SU: Media online magazine, some editing has been done which I have applied (in places).

As I very much predicted, having set out today with a plan of what I wanted to see and when...nothing really permitted me to follow said plan.

The time was half past nine and I arrived into town to view Temenos, an installation at the Methodist Church Central Hall. The installation revolved around the idea of thresholds, sanctuaries, and new things coming into being, only to find the opening time had changed. Afterwards, I was on a mission to find the Orbit Bus Session but this was unfortunately delayed. I came to realise that is was possible to be too organised.
Fortunately, I was now able to return to the former sanctuary of Ric Stott and Ian Adams. Through a series of 10 paintings (Stott) and poems (Adams), a viewer was taken on their own journey of self-discovery, the former balancing warm swathes of colour with cool scribbles and scratches over beautifully simplistic black and white drawings, which the latter gave greater spiritual meaning to. By the end, only warmth and strength remained, as if ready to start the ‘story’ over, an apt method given its religious vibe.

The Truth Wall - Plymouth What's On stand

Following this, I thought I would be at a loss once more until The Truth Wall began shouting its anti-politics at me from the "What’s On" stand. Organised by the Kiss and Bite Letterpress Studio, any potential traces of old announcements were virtually smothered by the haphazard pasting of 80s-style propaganda. Its boldly coloured declarations of ‘Don’t Be Calm, Be Angry’ were instantly eye-catching and subvert the typical 'Keep Calm and Carry On' narrative. After circling this outspoken piece a few times like an inquisitive dog, I wandered to the Hoe in search of Anita Lander; her unique decision to sit and listen on a bench beneath a tree for seven hours intrigued me. Alas, she too was nowhere to be seen so I turned myself back to town to continue the next leg of my arty odyssey.

Having sufficiently caffeinated myself with an iced Americano and picked up my constant companion in all things arty, Mark Jones, we investigated BankRUN, a small wooden ATM created by Lara Luna Bartley to mark the 10^th anniversary of Northern Rock’s collapse. Having ‘activated’ the machine by trusting my finger to a small hole in the display, a magical hand provided me with the option of three bank notations and one of three radical economists to adorn the note. After a brief wait, the chosen note was delicately ejected through a slot, bearing Ben Dyson’s face on one side, and a female face oddly like my own on the other. Wishing it had any monetary value, we advanced to the bus stop in anticipation of the Wonderzoo Bus Tour organised by Peter Davey. Just up the road sat the number 34 Orbit bus, its top deck stuffed with brilliant pink orbs, taunting my impatience and self-inflicted schedule, but I had stranger things to attend to on a bus. Joined by some of last night’s Versify crew, we experienced out-of-tune group renditions of The Sound of Music. Oddly enough, West country comedian Richard James appeared to be more at home shouting at people on a bus (despite the unconventionality of doing just that) than small talk. Versify’s own poet, Nick Ingram, was looking to beat his own record for the verbal 100-metre dash, before Versify’s organiser Marian tantalised the ears with her poem on whales, whales, whales. After an hour, we’d ended up so far out of town, we needed to catch another bus back.

Once returned to familiar ground, we trekked out to what I perceived to be the final location on my schedule, the Plymouth School of Creative Arts, playing host to multiple installations for the weekender, which included:

The Curious Cattewater Dog Cabinet (Zoe and Callum Moscrip): a means of bridging the gap between artefact and community by bringing evidence of one such artefact (a shipwreck) to life in the form of a skeletal puppet dog. Despite its obviously deceased state, I felt it might move at any moment – if only the mechanism would allow it to.

In the Air… (Jenny Mellings): a set of three aerial painted scenes of remote landscapes – even as far as Saturn’s moon, Titan – which provided a way to make the distant seem nearer, and the reverse, in a tangible space.

What do you see? (Janine Rook): a series of visitor-created Rorschach inkblots intended to explore one’s psyche. Most of the images had a biological nature for me – lungs, tree, uterus – what could that be saying about my psyche?

Paradice Lost (Stuart Robinson and Kirsty Harris): in my quest for deeper meanings behind art, this minimalist interaction of a neon red sign saying ‘PARADICE’ (Robinson) and a colour scene of a mushroom cloud (Harris) said it all loud and clear. However, that was not all there was to it. Other interpretations emerged from my conversation with Stuart, such as the installation’s sense of not-rightness. This derived from the incorrect spelling of paradise and the innocuous ‘poof’ of the cloud.  It was through this conversation that my [true] final stop was mentioned: KARST’s contribution to We the People Are the Work, I Am Your Voice by Claire Fontaine.

In the spaces provided, we found a map of the British Isles composed of burnt matches, signifying a ‘tragedy perceived too late’, the smell of which tainted the air; and a set of three neon signs in red and white lighting up an otherwise pitch-black room which smelt of fresh paint. Their ambiguous messages allowed a viewer to question the concept of morals: I do it because it’s right/It’s right because I do it. 

An ominous self-portrait

The signs frighteningly seemed to communicate with one another as the individual words lit up, making me glad to leave the room – if only to peep into KARST’s own Peepshow. Through nine installed peepholes could be seen a snippet of the resident artists’ work, allowing the average viewer a glimpse behind the scenes, one piece proving difficult to tear Mark away from due to it living up to the installation’s name.

Phew, and with that, day two is wrapped. Any quotes are taken from the provided leaflets. Bring on day three!

Day One of the Plymouth Arts Weekender 2017: Various Areas

So here we are again, PAW round two. So far it's been a wet but still fulfilling day and I can only expect more to come. Someone help me, what have I done? But in all seriousness, I am writing this review for the university's online magazine so I must make the effort, plus I like working to deadlines. So enjoy.
NB: as this article was written in collaboration with Plymouth University's SU:Media online magazine, some editing has been done which I have applied (in places).

It’s getting late as the first day of the Plymouth Arts Weekender 2017 draws to a damp close, but the challenge of documenting this city-wide event still lays before me, and so, in true student fashion, I shall be awake long after my accustomed bedtime (and probably for the next two nights also).

I was reasonably well rested but was very eager to seek out the artistic talent that was on offer in the Scott Building on campus. My main goal was to locate on the top floor a small exhibition of MA Photography called Perception. Slowly tracing my way down the silent corridor, I gave each piece my full attention and found my favourites to be thus:

She is Whispering, They are Whispering

 Mary Pearson – She is Whispering, They are Whispering: an almost 3-dimensional diptych of misty trees which felt as if they were hiding their aforementioned whisperer(s) in the gloom.

Cheryl Davies – The Seven Seals: a contrasting pair of white on black Spirograph-effect forms, one orderly, one chaotic, but both equally discomforting in their respective states.

Christopher J. Russell – My friend, you are a lunar lamplight: in five night-time shots and a brief travel narrative, the streets at night are brought alive despite their apparent barrenness, everything the light shines on brought into sharp focus.

Donna Richardson – The River Flows; and Mathilda Hu – It’s difficult to be water: water can be a difficult form to capture, but both Richardson and Hu managed to depict their subject uniquely and clearly. 'The River Flows' provided a snapshot of life, especially vivid when seen through a lightbox, the motion of the water’s texture anticipated but never realised. However, with 'It's difficult to be water', this texture was played with, first scaly and cold, then soft, through to warm and golden.

Sue Taylor-Money – Leaving by Degrees: a particularly poignant piece told through photo and poem of an ageing man contemplating life, exuding a kind of sad strength which touched me, as I imagine it would have done others.

After a little disappointment from two exhibits nearby – and a few hours spent manning the Peninsula Arts stall during Freshers Fair (my thanks to everyone who came and listened) – I wandered my way through the rain to the Safe House. This was an installation whose location was only disclosable via email, but which revealed itself to be a small semi-interactive sound-and-vision immersion within St Peter’s Church. 
I was greeted by the artist herself (who shall remain anonymous), who, in keeping with the installation’s domestic theme, provided me with a mug of tea before explaining the story behind what I was seeing/hearing. Each of the four projected videos within the small chamber illustrated her feelings concerning domestic abuse, something she has been a victim of herself: a cloth doll being gradually unpicked; the suicidal or forced proximity to a cliff edge; the playful yet uneasy fall of feathers as if from a pillow fight; and the small beams of light/hope from a net curtain. Wrapped up in a paranoid-schizophrenic chatter, its entrance was strewn with broken eggshells – which I was encouraged to walk on – and it was impossible not to feel uneasy myself; the church, a usually safe place, only amplified the voices. But Karen, by providing me with the background information and becoming my living placard, seemed to soften the chaos, further illustrated by the happier, silent video which sat on a separate set nearby.

Still smiling, as I walked back into town through the rain, my penultimate stop was I am not a robot at the Radiant Gallery on Derry’s Cross. Set up to raise awareness of foster care, the small dimly lit space was haunting, hung with tangled webs of fabric and multiple silver and white cages, each home to a furless, metallic, sleeping Furby. These would periodically wake up with a subtle click of their plastic ears and beaks, half-lidded eyes blazing bright. The atmosphere was enhanced by a sci-fi soundtrack which was equal parts hopeful, yet haunting. These metallic ‘children’, representative of real ones, were intended as foster child analogues to test one’s fostering skills, but the moment I saw Tim Burton’s poetry sitting on the provided sofa, I was only worried I’d make the poor things cry.

Thus, with a rotisserie chicken Subway in hand, I finished the day with an evening of words and sound at Versify, the culmination of a month of creative workshops at Union Corner. Having spent the better part of an hour simultaneously finishing a half-written poem about an overzealous poet and listening to those on the night’s set-list practise their material, we were ready to begin. Amongst the talent was a spot of exotic dancing, some short but infectious rapping, young singers testing their vocal chords on punk and rock, an even younger dance prodigy who moved like a robot marionette, and a sizable dose of modern day comedic poetry, most notably (and deafeningly) delivered by the established poet Nick Ingram - a man I would describe as the ‘clown’ of the Plymouth poetry scene. When it came to test out my new material, I was genuinely surprised at my own nerves, but also at the post-delivery high I had forgotten came with these gigs – not to mention the occasional enthusiastic compliments. My good friend Mark Jones followed in my wake with his own breed of brief and bizarre wit, before the night began to wind down and put an end to day one of PAW17.