‘Who Will Provide’ Exhibition at The Crypt Gallery
31/10 – 4/11 2018
Our group of thirty three MFA students explored and responded to themes relating to charity and its place in today’s world. The exhibition presented a collection of site specific works, ranging from painting to sculpture, assemblage to video through to performance and photography.
Before the summer break preparations started by putting together various teams to properly organise and execute the event. The members of the research team responded to the site by looking into its history, connecting it to its past and designed the theme ’Who Will Provide?’ around the wish list, a document from 1995 which outlined the desired purpose for the building. This included shelter and provision for the homeless, serving the nearby student population and a focal point for community activities.
I volunteered to join the Installation Team. Over the summer I visited the crypt twice with the view to inform myself about the site (wall space, wall and ceiling heights, location of electrical outlets etc.) and to explore a potential location for my own work.
Two weeks prior to the event the curating team got in touch and supplied our team with a list of required tools and materials. We also received technical information on some more complicated works and installing requirements from The Crypt Gallery itself (No drilling of new holes!). There was very good collaboration between curating and installation team and minor installation problems were efficiently dealt with.
SKILLS: HANDLING ARTWORK, COLLABORATION, PROBLEM SOLVING, ATTENTION TO DETAIL,
SITE SPECIFIC WORKING
Mark Dion ‘Theatre of the Natural World’
Whitechapel Gallery, London 14/2-13/5 2018
Mark Dion is one of a generation of artists whose work addresses cultural, political and environmental ecologies. Since the 1990’s he has explored the relationship between humans and nature which has become increasingly troubled.
Works created since 2000 are the subject of this show at the Whitechapel Gallery and it says a lot about the Anthropocene, the current state of our Earth and the artist’s pessimistic-realistic- point of view.
His works reflect his interest in the relationship between art and science, in classification and collecting. His installations turn in one way or another on how ideologies and institutions shape knowledge, history and man’s engagement with nature. “Humans do not stand outside of nature", he has written. “We, too, are animals, a part of the very thing we have tried to control, whether for exploitation or protection".
The installation ‘The Wonder Workshop’(2015), shown here at the Whitechapel Gallery, references the ‘Wunderkammer’ the artist has been interested and constructed since the late 80’s. Originally regarded as a microcosm or theatre of the world, they were intended to install a notion of wonder and curiosity. This work still captures one's attention for its strangeness but there is a sense of loss as one realises it being about disappearance and destruction of the planet.
‘Costume Bureau’ (2006) reflects Dion's thoughts about an artist's role in today's world.
It is a set of four mannequins wearing different outfits used in past projects, ranging from a white lab coat to the outfit of a field biologist.Through this artwork he engages with the ways in which human beings represent nature and the many different personages
artists have to take on that stretches far beyond traditional roles.
Instilling wonder, magic and curiosity whilst challenging and actively rethinking our relationship with nature, they become
biologists, anthropologists, archeologists, news reporters and other kind of investigators.
In an interview with T.N. Goodeve from The Brooklyn Rail Arts Journal he says:
"For the things I care about there is very little good news. This is a serious role for the arts- bearing witness and mourning.
After all, mourning is a legitimate mode of thinking".
