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re-turning

"re-turning" is the most recent investigation in an ongoing artistic research project by Andrew Brown, Joanne Lee, Danica Maier, and Christine Stevens. 

 

Working under the title Returns, the group grew out of a 2012 residency at the former Spode ceramics factory organized by Topographies of the Obsolete, an international artistic-research project. Since then, Returns has repeatedly returned to investigate Stoke-on-Trent, its urban landscapes and diverse communities, its manufacturing and craft skills, and the material history that has made it so distinctive. This book, and the exhibition at AirSpace Gallery to which it relates, present aspects of this artistic research and the ‘back stitch’ methodology through which it has been pursued.

Purchase from: ​Danica Maier Studio (£15)

Her Words, My Voice

Her Words, My Voice is a concertina and fold out printed piece that is part publication, part performative reading script. Taken directly from Joanna Colenbrander’s biography, A Portrait of Fryn: Biography of F. Tennyson Jesse. This piece was part of the artistic research project Bummock: Tennyson Research Centre during which I focused my engagement with and research on Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s great niece - Fyrn Tennyson Jesse.  The quotes found within the (un)folding pages of the publication are Fryn’s words, my voice. Voice as in the sound produced when I speak these words in a live performative reading, or you read them, and equally my voice as to express an opinion or feeling. Some of the quotes speak very much for and of me, others are ones I connect or relate to their intentions and meaning. Taking

you from her early years through until after death, together these ‘voices’ build up an imprint of Fryn as well as an imprint of myself. Some quotes are direct connections or similarities between us, others are merely thoughts that touched me or that to which I relate. 

 

This work functions as both material engagement, though its physical publication (open, look, read, unfold, read, flip over, look again), as well as prop and script for a live performative reading. It can be read to a large audience or small and has even been performed to no audience other than the North Sea. The reverse side of the concertina holds a fragment of enlarged petit point piece titled Gros Cut Mill which depicts Fryn's frist material home. There are three different versions of the piece holding a different fragment of image on each.  

Contact me here -  direct to purchase. (£15)

Bummock: Tennyson Research Centre 
and Bummock: The Lace Archive 

Publications from two recent iteration of ongoing artistic research project Bummock: New Artistic Approaches to Unseen parts of the Archive. The Bummock is the large part of an iceberg hidden beneath the surface of the sea. This project seeks to investigate, research and use unseen parts of archives as catalysts for the creation of new artworks.  Through artists’ residencies (involving Maier, Bracey and different invited artists for each archive) within varying archives we will investigate items and documents not regularly brought up for research and public exposure. The artwork created leads to Exhibition-Laboratories in neighbouring galleries or museums, including the archival material, symposiums and publications.  These are two of the publication from projects within the Lace Archive (2018) with Lucy Renton as third artists and the Tennyson Research Centre (2022) with Sarah Bennet.

 for more information visit: www.bummock.org.  

Purchase from Cornerhouse here:  Lace Archive, and Tennyson Research Centre. (both £15)

No Telos!

No Telos is a collaborative artistic research project for exploring the critical role of uncertainty, disorientation, not knowing and open-ended activity within creative practice and during uncertain times. The project considers different tactics for resisting the increasingly outcome-motivated or achievement-oriented tendencies of contemporary culture, by shifting emphasis from a mode of telos- or goal-driven productivity towards experimental forms of process-led exploration, subversive playfulness and wilful irresolution. No Telos was conceived as a counter-measure to the ubiquitous demands to do more and more — faster and faster. ​ This artist's book comprises a series of 'scores' drawing on exercises and practices first developed and tested in Venice. The city is is approached as a live laboratory 

For artistic research. This highly tactile edition is printed with multiple special features including a screen printed cover, multiple speciality papers, french folds, Risograph printed sections and removable inserts. ​ Contributing artists: Andrew Brown, Emma Cocker, Steve Dutton, Katja Hock, Tracy Mackenna, Danica Maier, Andy Pepper, Elle Reynolds, Derek Sprawson. Edited by: Emma Cocker and Danica Maier ​

 

Purchase at Beam Editions here: No Telos! (£25) 

Grafting Propriety: From Stitch to the Drawn Line 

Grafting Propriety: From Stitch to the Draw Line focuses on Danica Maier's drawing practice exploring how textile processes can be examined and recreated through the drawn line. Maier is interested in how textiles agendas can be addressed through other media and processes. A textile research residency and a solo exhibition Stitch & Peacock at The Collection Museum, Lincoln - is the starting point to focus on this particular aspect of Maier's work. The publication further examines drawings created during an international residency at the abandoned Spode Factory; research projects involving the use of digital embroidery combined with the drawn line; and the use of popular historical surface pattern. This publication feature photographs of historical samplers from the Collection and Usher Gallery's

 textile collection, new and older artworks, and essays by Emma Cocker, Danica Maier, John Plowman, Lisa Vinebaum. 

Purchase on amazon here: Grafting Propriety or contact me direct. (£14.95)

Topographies of the Obsolete

Topographies of the Obsolete is an Artistic Research project (KU Prosjekt) initiated by Professors Neil Brownsword and Anne Helen Mydland at Bergen Academy of Art and Design (KHiB) in collaboration with partner universities/institutions in Denmark, Germany and the UK.  The main collaborative partner is the British Ceramics Biennial, who invited KHiB to work at the original Spode Works factory in Stoke-on-Trent, to develop a site specific artistic response as a core element of their 2013 exhibition program. More than 40 international artists and theoreticians have participated in this multidisciplinary project with a program of seminars, publications and exhibitions. Three residencies have accumulated individual artistic projects from which the overriding project has developed.

The project focus centres upon the landscape of post-industry, more particular; that of Stoke-on-Trent, a world renowned ceramic capital that bears in its city evidence of fluctuations in global fortunes. The original Spode factory, situated in the heart of Stoke-on-Trent, was once a keystone of the city's industrial heritage which operated upon its original site for over 230 years. Amongst Spode's contributions to ceramic history include the perfection of under-glaze blue printing and Fine Bone China. The factory's industrial architecture dates from the 1760's to the late 1980's, with spaces associated with all aspects of the design, manufacture, retail and administration in close geographical proximity. In 2008 Spode's Church Street site closed, with most of its production infrastructure and contents left intact.

The original Spode site offers multi-faceted scope for creative interpretation through its socio-economic histories, industrial architecture, production- and material remnants.

 

Read publications online here: Topographies of the Obsolete   (free online)

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