Practice in Context

Summary of Art Practice

In terms of the developmental stage of my independent art practice over the last year has been an exploration of social situations, politics and cultural heritage mostly resulting screenprints of puns, slogans and story telling. I want to continue looking at these themes and transforming them into more coherent and concrete project. The conclusions I have made from my developmental stage is to create my own concept nation i.e. my own world where I can explore my different and unique perspectives of current social and political scapes and the emphasis of my work has been to present them coherently to the rest of the world,

Plans for Practice in Context:

Collaberative and interactive projects are one of my main art interests, and I would like to explore these ideas in conjunction with new themes of social networking in terms of the internet and new media. Therefore I plan to create a virtual community either via a blogspot or website, which will potentially open up communication and discussion and will be play a part in my research part of the project and also be a oppurtune place to showcase my work virtually which may take the forms of films, photos, drawings as well as essays, texts and narratives. I was considering to create a daily journal which would function as a virtual sketchbook, where I can propose new ideas and projects and hopefully incite interest and interactivity within a community of artists, writers, theorists etc. The contents of this would be socio-political and cultural interests as well as observations and narratives written within a journalistic style in order for it to be widely accessible.


Contextual Research:

The body of my research and art practice has always been to explore the problems, conflicts and different perspectives that arise from living in multicultural societies or cultures that are embedded within other cultures i.e. hybrid cultures. To supplement my knowledge of this topic I will read Homi K Bhabha s The Location of Culture and other seminal cultural theorists including Jaques Derrida in terms of theories on deconstruction.

Artist/ Curatorial contextual research (incl. exhibitions) :

Peter Coffin, Grow Youre Own State, Palais de Tokyo, 2007.
The artists and curators that have incredibly relevance to my own independent art practice include Peter Coffin who curated the show Grow youre own State to exhibit the diverse and complex study of micro nations and concept nations.

Martin Bricelj, Everlandia, ICA, www.everlandia.net
The artist Martin Bricelj is a web based artist, creating interactive art pieces that can be accessed virtually via the web. The Everlandia project is virtual travel agency thus forcing the active participants to imagine and therefore create imaginary fanatasy worlds.

Emma Ruston and Derek Tyman, Flaghall, Unit 2 Gallery, 2002
The curators Rushton and Tyman, explore social, cultural situations along the lines of relational aesthetics. Working with artists like Paul Rooney and Kwong Lee.