#10.2 decends…

With the end of exams we are now ready for the debut of #10.2, our next exhibition at the Arnolfini, this weekend. This week we have written press releases, appeared in the venue magazine and distributed many flyers all over Bristol.

Tonight, the films made we made at forkbeard fantasy, edited together by Rob and Alex this week, will be projected onto the outside of the Arnolfini building REALLY REALLY BIG!! The projections will then continue on Saturday during the day, inside the auditorium for those who couldn’t make the preview.

The film showing is our response to Otto Zitko’s current exhibition and will be accompanied by a soundtrack made by some YAAC members and other upcoming Bristol muscians.

It should be a night to remember so come and join us outside the Arnolfini at 10.30pm and watch YAAC’s final spectacle unfold!

Phe and Jessie

FORKBEARD and so forth…

Well, well, well where do I start… A lot has been going on recently with the YAACers so apologies for the slight abandonment. Everyone has had their art exam in the past couple of weeks so its all been a bit manic.

In response to the new Lingua Franca season at the Arnolfini we started writing on the walls of the cafe bar. The beginning of the story  features a woman called Nora who is referred to in Otto Zitko’s current exhibition. We are encouraging the public to add a word and carry on our story, so please check it out and pick up a pen!

These past few days was YAACs first residential weekend. On Friday afternoon we met at Temple meads to get the train to Devon. On arriving at Tiverton Parkway we were greeted by some friendly taxi drivers, who were to be our chauffeurs for the weekend… we stayed in some adorable cottages where we were indulged by a swimming pool and trampoline, and awoke on Saturday morning to be taken to the FORKBEARD FANTASY studios.

We were greeted by two men Ed and Chris, who led us into a huge warehouse. Immediately when we stepped inside we all went silent and were mesmerized by the sheer size of the place and all the equipment and props. There was so much stuff and things to look at, and you got the impression that everything had a story of its own. We later met Tim and Penny, all four of them were so enthused and theatrical about what they were doing and really inspiring.

We started by experimenting with using film to record ourselves acting something or another and then interacting with ourselves on a screen after it had been recorded. It’s hard to imagine but the outcome is really effective and quite entertaining. We also were shown various animation and film techniques which we developed ourselves on sunday. This included using old scraps of film rolls to scratch and manipulate to create really beautiful films, various animations with sand, paper, props, anything you could find really. Some of us were shown how to create masks using latex and various other materials… there was so much to do and it was a really brilliant course. Some of these films and animations we hope to use in a perhaps our last exhibition so watch this space…The staff were incredible and the weekend was a grand success all round really, huge thanks to everyone who made in happen, was just fabulous and I definitely recommend it.

ciao, jessie.

Well, hello there.

So, yesterday (Sunday 28th March) there was an event in the Arnolfini Reading Room called ‘Talking with your Mouth Full’. It involved a number of youth arts groups coming together to discuss all and anything about the art world. Including a couple of us YAACers, there were artists, ages ranging between 16 – 25, from London, Birmingham and Milton Keynes.

When we arrive we were greeting by a number lovely faces, and more excitingly, LOTS of croissants and pain au chocolates. We were invited to write down any questions that we thought would be a good thing to talk about all together and popped them into a big gold box. 

It was really nice to sit in a circle on some lovely coloured rugs and get to know each other before we were given a timer and a box of questions. It was interesting to hear how the other groups go about making and getting feedback on their work. We all exchanged emails so we could carry on asking questions and talking to each other. I’ll blog soon telling you about some of the more interesting ones and what we all answered. I also enjoyed answering questions from song lyrics.

So, I ask you: Hello, is it me you’re looking for?

Ta Very Much,

Jennifer.

Create Connect Festival and Advanced Walrus Impersonation

hello world!

currently sat at the Create Connect Festival, the air is heavy with enthusiastic youngsters wanting to know about arts and crafts and badges (we’ve been making badges). Directly opposite me, there is a life-size walrus suit which has been beckoning me from the second I arrived; the urge to prance around in it is becoming unbearable and the scent of business rooms is becoming nauseating. That said, we’ve been fervently collecting all your secrets in our box, ready and waiting to plaster them all over the Wi-Fi Corner…those letters need their down time and secrets never get tired.

Will remember to put the numerous photographs from today up at some point, right now however, the teas and coffees arranged ceremoniously are looking increasingly attractive so im off for a tipple. see y’all on ta flip side laterzzz

Robin Micheal William Arthur Stewart

Feast your wonderful eyes on this…

As Pheebs has already so lovingly (or hatefully, in Robins case) blogged about our exhibition, #10, I thought I simply add to it by sharing a number of pictures taken throughout the whole process, from folding, to building, to more folding, to invidulating, to more folding, to having to sadly take it down last Monday.

I hope many of you were able to visit the exhibition some time over the weekend, as on Sunday we took a tally and had an incredible 246 people visit in that one day! Thank you to everyone that came and supported us, and I hope you throughly enjoyed it.

Below are just some of the comments that we heard from out lovely observers.

‘the best exhibition in the whole gallery’

‘I’ve just been to the RWA paper exhbition, and this is as good, if not better’

‘really impressive’

‘its spectacular, really amazing’

‘what you’ve done is incredible, you must be proud…’

‘its really wonderful…I love it’

And we love you all to.

Au Revoir,

Jennie xxx

In the name of beating Robin to the blog…

…A tad unfair really seeing as I had the clear advantage, the boy is still walking home.

After a five hour stint invigilating our #10 exhibition in the light studio today, there’s tons of interesting things we wanted to say. My favourite publishable quote of the day being: “Wow”…the simplicity of which speaks, I like to think, entirely for itself. We shall not mention the fact the approximately 10 year old boy then followed his immedate reaction with the words: “I like this. This is nice” before punching his brother in an attempt to be the first to experience the wonders of our triangle making table. But rest assured, both boys went home with their very own A3 folded triangles, which with any luck will have helped to numb the pain sufficently.

I will see triangles in my sleep tonight no doubt, but on the off chance she will ever read this I would like to thank the woman who concisely described our folding process as: “like folding a nappy!” my appreciation of your enthusiasm is not unfounded.

Among other conversations with members of the public about various topics: Tracey Kendall, an artist who makes fabulous 3D wallpapers (I’ve just looked her up and it’s really quite something), Craftivism in Galleries 1 and 3, the concrete floor and bare light bulbs, I’ve thought of some things us YAACers need to consider for next time:

1. A comments book would be really useful for feedback…I felt a tad self concious quickly scribbling quotations. Even if comments are not always positive it would mean people had taken time out of their busy lives to talk to us, and good or bad, I’d be happy to know our art is worth talking about.

2. Publicity on the Arnolfini website. I presume this is imminent anyway, but one woman did say she’d tried searching for ‘Origami’ on the Arnolfini website for her son, as she’d been tipped off about our exhibition by a friend, but couldn’t find a whisper.

3. Make a mailing list. We met a lovely man who works for a company called ‘Container Arts’, who, after we’d drawn up a ‘How to Make an Origami Triangle’  instructions sheet for his young companion, gave us his email so we could keep in touch and possibly attend arty events he plans to put on in the future. Should we not be compiling a list of these emails, to let the appreciative public know of future events, and dare I say it…accumulate fans?

But yes, happy day.

Sorry Robin.

P x

Folding, Snowing, Folding, Snowing, Folding, Snowing…

Well, what can I say, since we have been back at school I don’t think any of us have stopped. Arriving back with little idea about what we would be putting in our exhibition in less than 2 weeks was kinda scary… however last tuesday pheebs brought in an amazin 3D swan made by her genius of a little brother Fen, which inspired us. we have decided to make something life-size in relation to this little wonder, using folded A2 bits of paper and lightbulbs.

After deciding what we would be doing, these past 6 days have been manic. I don’t think my inbox has ever been so full with emails from one person (becks) as it has been over this weekend… To top everything off last, Wednesday evening it started snowing. I’m not talking about rubbish slushy/icy snow, real snow that is still lying around… it has become more and more treacherous, I have slipped over so many times I cant remember and it has made everything 10 times harder. For one, school was canceled for three days, and there was still the problem of where we were going to get 5000 pieces of A2 paper from?! however becks was to the rescue and found a paper supplier, a lovely man called Richard at ARBORETA PAPERS  0117 9636699. He was so kind and sympathized with the urgency and delivered all the paper to the Arnolfini for us!

Over the weekend everyone has been folding crazy, little triangles for our paper sculpture, of which we reckon we are gonna need 10,000!!! Even Georges’ nanny has been getting involved! Yesterday a couple of us went into a year 8 class at school to teach the kids how to fold the paper so they could help us get as many as possible, talk about ‘making art more accessible for young people’ eh?

While all the paper folding has been going on, last week Alex worked his ass off to get the flyer together which looks just fabulous, we are starting to distribute them so watch this space… As well as this him and Rob have been sorting out the zine which looks incredible also, well done guys..

The launch and our exhibition is becoming more known, E shed have even featured us in their newsletter;

'So, here's the first newsletter of 2010- we've got two really exciting
opportunities for you, one with a chance of winning a very plush piece of
filmmaking gear, one a chance to get some amazing work experience. But
first, let's start with some news on new work from the Arnolfini's young
artists collective.
EVENTS: Young Arnolfini Artists Collective (YAAC) Preview of Work and
Website Launch Thu 14 Jan, 6pm - 8pm
For those of you who are into contemporary arts and performance, this is a
great chance for you to see new work by some fresh young talent! This Launch
night is an opportunity to see YAAC's new exhibition entitled #10 in
Arnolfini's Light Studio plus their co-produced artwork in Gallery Three.
YAAC is a collective of ten young artists from Cotham School, aged 17-18
based in Bristol. Working with Arnolfini to make contemporary art more
manageable for young people, they will infiltrate the gallery with an
abundance of ideas, artwork, talks, discussions and workshops over the next
seven months.
In the auditorium at 7pm, there will be two dance performances by Swindon's
Youth Dance Academy followed by a YAAC presentation launching their website
and Zine.
It's absolutely free, although booking is essential as it looks like places
will fill up fast!'

Tom (our website designer) has been working like crazy to sort our website out… we got a sneak preview yesterday and looks brilliant, so we are all very excited about that too.

If you still havn’t booked a place for our launch on thursday you need a ticket, go the Anolfini website. If you can’t make that then come to our exhibition this weekend anyway!! Everything is coming together and it looks like with only 2 days to go we might just be able to pull this all off! The only drawback is the fact that we may be joined by another helping of snow. shit.

I need to go do some more folding, but will no doubt give you an update in the next few days…

Thanks to… Phoebes genius little brother Fen… Richard the paper man … Nanny Hann … Tom … and of course Becks.

adios JP

Techie Time

So today we met with the technician, Mark, and operation manager, Lynn. We explained what we wanted to do for our exhibition and how we wanted the public to view it. We had to explain everything from how the public would walk around the room, to health and safety, to light installations.

This meeting was very helpful because it gave us a much clearer idea of the work we needed to do and how we were going to get everything together for Thursday’s YAAC launch. We came to the conclusion that one large piece wasn’t going to be as feasible as a number of smaller pieces, and that we needed to get folding origami triangles quickly! (I’m not going to give too much away, so you will just have to wait until Thursday to see what we’ve been working on the last couple of weeks!)

Have a look at what we’ve been up to today, and go and reserve your ticket for the viewing!

There’s not many tickets left! To reserve a FREE ticket call : 0117 917 2300/01  or email: boxoffice@arnolfini.org.uk

Jennie Lodge

(Because I didn’t use proper punctuation in my last blog, sorry Matt)

The wonders of the wi-fi corner

So, on Wednesday 9th December, a grand 2 days before the preview of ‘Craftivism’ at the Arnolfini, we all brought our letters into the main gallery,  to finally enable us to see each other’s individual art work, combined to spell the words ‘wi-fi corner’.

As part of our challenge to infiltrate the gallery with new ideas, we were asked by the Arnolfini café-bar to define their wi-fi corner with some lettering. Once we had thought up our own ideas, chosen a font, and cut the letters out of plywood, we came back to the Arnolfini to present them to the Café-bar staff and the curator of the Arnolfini. Our letters (one each) are reflective of an artist involved in Craftivism which interested us personally. For example Rob’s ‘r’ is reminiscent of the playful wooden structures created by Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler, and Jennies and Jack’s letters, made of women’s underwear are inspired by Rhiannon Chloner’s masks.
Once completed, we had a talk with Nav, the curator at the Arnolfini, to choose how to position and install the letters. After trying out several different options we settled upon spanning the letters across the three walls, and having the words at two levels, to grab maximum attention from passers by!

The feedback from those who attended our preview on the Friday was tremendously positive, and we were all pleased that our we were able to extend our work this far round the Arnolfini! Most of all, I like the way each letter represents us not just us a a collective, but as individuals too, and those who know us well were able to spot which letter we each had through our own individual styles and talents!

In the future we intend to redecorate our letters according to what is being showcased in the galleries, so who knows what will appear next!

Phoebe

Art Live!

Art Live!

Wednesday 16^th December

Dominion Theatre, London

The 10 of us, as well as a couple of other art students, went on a little road trip to London to attend Art Live! at the Dominion Theatre. It was host to a number of artists, who spoke about their work and answered (some rather ridiculous, though mostly enjoyable) questions from the audience.  Following this blog on Martin Creed, will be my response to Quentin Blake, illustrator extraordinaire, and Germaine Greer. Enjoy…

Martin Creed

‘The more I work the more I think I don’t know what I’m doing…’

As the first speaker I was intrigued to see how he was going to go about talking to the audience and how he was going to present his ideas. When he walked on, he was wearing all black, as artists do, and was accompanied by a lady. Creed told us she was a dancer and she was there to ‘keep him company’. This dancer then copied him and followed his every move. Creed explained that all he does is ‘think and move and feel’ and that he wanted to use the dancer as a way to make a dance out of regular movements people do everyday and exaggerate them, as ‘moving is easier to pin down than thinking and feeling.’ Overall I found Creed to be a unusual character, he had no real opinion of art, and in fact believed that his work wasn’t even art itself.

Why is your work art?

‘I don’t think it is art. I don’t make art. I make things for people to look at and listen to. Art is not art. Art is not a definitive thing. Art is only art when someone thinks it is.’

What is art?

‘Nobody or anything. Art is just a word, spelt a. r. t.’

Why do you do it?

‘I want to make my life better. I’m looking for excitement, pleasure and fun. I’m a sensitive person; I get hawked if someone doesn’t like my work. I do my work because I want to be love. Most people are seeking attention; I am to a certain extent. I wouldn’t call myself an artist, or a performer, I’m just a person.’

Describe your work.

‘What I do to help me live’

Do you do it for yourself or for others?

‘Both – I want to be loved. For both – I think. It made me more confident when I won the turner prize. It felt like I was back at school though, and I hate it.’

Are feelings important?

‘Yeah – I like to have good feelings. Good feelings are more important than good ideas.’

Who is your favourite artist?

‘Picasso is my favourite artist – when I see his work I almost always think, ’wow, that’s amazing,’’

What inspires you?

‘Feeling bad inspires me, because I want to feel better. But feeling good inspires me.’

Are you insecure?

‘I don’t really know. Maybe. Maybe not. Probably. Yes, yes I am.’

Why are you doing this?

‘Because I was asked to do this…’

Can you draw?

‘Yeah…’

What’s your favourite colour?

‘Black’

Why are you recording this?

‘I’m recording this because I’m scared of loosing things. Using words is as much as getting colours and shapes to make a painting.’

Why do you not title your work?

‘I’ve never really been happy with titles, it pins down a subject. That’s why I number my work, words pins things down. I don’t have a number one. There is too much pressure on a number one so I started with number three.’

Are you living life to the fullest?

‘No, I don’t. I get side tracked by pissy things.’

What do you think of art galleries?

‘An art gallery is a theatre for looking at things. I like art galleries – you can come and go as you please. People are always moving. The experience between the art and the people is a living one.’

jennie lodge