Comfort Zone was a two woman show that confronted the questions: What exactly is a comfort zone? How comfortable is comfort? How does one break out of one’s own comfort zone?
Barbara Loisch - 76 unfulfilled wishes
Barbara Loisch - Harvest
Barbara Loisch - La cerise sur le gâteau
Karlie Wu - selected works
Comfort Zone - Opening Night
In 1603, under the rule of James I, the crowns of England and Scotland became united under what is known as a ‘Perfect Union’. The referendum, only 1 week away, is challenging this 400 year union, with a very real possibility that Scotland will again be an independent country.
Personal Union was created by a group of artists and staff at the Glasgow School of Art Students’ Association (aka The Art School), the project was headed up by Winnie Herbstein and Josh Hill who wanted to provide the school with an independent poll that created a simulated experience of voting within a hedonistic celebratory context.
The Art School played host to the official Reid Building opening party earlier this year, over 900 people flowed into the venue to celebrate the return to Garnethill, it was a perfect opportunity to find out the opinion of its patrons. This certainly wasn’t the most accurate poll, people were drunk, people were making out in the booths -there was no registry and no invigilators- but this was the intention: it was an opportunity for people to try out new behaviours in a voting booth.
Personal Union (2014)
The first part of the installation, installed in the Assembly Hall referenced the heraldic motifs of the two countries. Two banners, one on either side of the booths framed the voters, in much the same way they would sit either side of a cathedral alter. Centre stage hung a mirror ball built to the proportions of the new one pound coin, due for release in 2017 and modelled on the old threepenny bit. Its relationship with the two flags highlighted the currencies spectral influence over the referendum; economics and finance as the central debate in the referendum. It also alluded to a future beyond the referendum.
Four polling booths sat in between the banners, they were adorned with the livery of the Scottish and English crests. Inside the booth, a supposedly neutral zone for the voter, was placed a voting box and ballot.
Although the result of the poll was people’s temporal experience inside them, something was left, an artefact… large stacks of voting slips.
Personal Union (2014) - Booths
Vermillion Sands is a book. It is also a place. It is also not a place. It is a state of mind. It is a collection of stories. It is also a collection of images. It is potentially several million book covers.
Jamie Limond & Sam O’Donnell
Grown in Spurts exhibited new work from Nick Lynch and Jess Higgins. Efforts include the exploration of repetitive methods of working, the venture of movement, the presence of time, and the practise of growing. Jess Higgins expanded on the exhibition, her practise and work.
What themes were you working on?
For the work in this show, I was, and have been for a while thinking about the experience of time, both spatially and conceptually, through language and action. Things like, the marathon, the sprint, stretching, conducting, circular forms and how those pushes and pulls affect the everyday experience.
What can you tell me about your art practise?
I take a multi-disciplinary, research based approach to my practise, embracing naivety in relation to methods of making, and also knowledge. I tend to draw on cultural themes / referencing to build new meanings or translations based on (as previously pointed to) perception and language, sometimes through a collaborative or open ended process wherein participation is utilised to create ungoverned outcomes. When working in a more solitary, studio based way, I’m interested in the notion of collage both in a literal sense (actually making real collages) or in a spatial way in terms of picking ‘things’ apart (concepts, theories, events and actions) and putting them back together again. Uncertainty is very important to me!
What medium or form does your work incorporate?
I guess physically it incorporates a lot of writing, some video, naive/simple drawing, collage and photography. Grown In Spurts saw the first performance I ever did, but actually I would say that I was more concerned with the texts/sounds and formula of direction/systems - but again that brings us back to the thematics as opposed to the physical. I work a lot with books and am interested in narratives and the vessel of the book to explore ideas, which I guess in some ways incorporates design as well, and I make about one sculpture a year too.
New work from Nick Lynch and Jessica Susan Higgins. Efforts include the exploration of repetitive methods of working, the venture of movement, the presence of time, and the practise of growing.
