Six artists transgress six public art spaces in a spirit of joyous dissent and resistance
Questioning the increasing privatisation and commercialisation of public spaces, each artist has chosen to pursue their personal vision within a different public art space to contest its meaning and challenge the boundaries of what might be tolerated without prior permission.
Special thanks to Loredana Denicola for the photography.
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In Outing the Saris, Ahmed Farooqui took his mother’s saris for an outing in Trafalgar Square. The saris participated in a simple set of movements involving their folding and unfolding, a process which the artist learnt as a small child helping his mother fold her saris. It was a collective public enactment of a personal domestic ritual. By occupying quite a large space and placing the quintessentially Indian feminine garments next to the Fourth Plinth he hoped to subvert its bloated pretensions while discovering new meanings and associations for the saris. Sunday 17 April, Trafalgar Square
Special thanks to Loredana Denicola for the photography. In I Goat, U Goat, Esperanza Gomez-Carrera takes up position in the precinct of Kenny Hunter’s Goat Sculpture in Bishops Square, Spitalfields. In this ambiguous public/private space she will establish a roped off area from where she will invite passer-bys to encounter and “read” the sculpture with her, starting a conversation where the meaning of the Goat is explored as a personal conversation. Sunday 17 April, Bishops Square, Spitalfields. Special thanks to Loredana Denicola for the photography.
In Day of the Pharaoh, Jeannette Abi Khalil performs an act of remembrance in the Room of the Mummies at the British Museum, recalling that mummies are first and foremost human remains. By treating them as worthy of reverence and the Museum as a place of interment, Jeannette will disrupt the usual relationship between the visitor and the mummies as objects of curiosity. Saturday 16 April, Egyptian Mummmies Galleries in the British Museum. Special thanks to Loredana Denicola for the photography.
In Zen Walking Meditation, Christina Lovey leads a “pilgrimage” linking one hallowed space (St Paul’s Cathedral) to another (Tate Modern), continuing into the galleries and finishing at an artwork as an object of meditation. Churches and galleries are regarded as spiritual places giving access to the Sublime in different ways. Christina proposes an explicit ritualistic encounter with the art space at Tate Modern to test the limits of its appetite for the spiritual. Saturday 16 April 2016. Special thanks to Loredana Denicola for the photography.
In Lesbos 2016 Warning: Does not protect from drowning, Caroline Halliday occupies a space in the precinct of Tate Modern, between the Gallery and the Thames, to share small works that she has created using remnants of children's swim jackets, useless life jackets and other materials that she has brought back from Lesbos after working there with the refugees. The Thames foreshore is a place of fluctuating tides of dangerous water like the Aegean Sea which the refugees have to cross. The free artworks contain both the tragedy and the beauty of an island and people. Saturday 16 April 2016. Special thanks to Loredana Denicola for the photography.
In This, I tell you, is the end, Jane Glennie undertakes a performative work beneath the enormous equestrian statue of 'mad' King George III, situated at the end of the Long Walk that extends nearly 3 miles from the gates of Windsor Castle. Jane’s work explores the ambiguity of a statement. How does an individual viewer interpret the meaning of language? Is the meaning derived from context, location, from personal experience, or from other associations? Is it the drama of suicide or the end of the world, a literal statement to walkers or something else? Saturday 16 April 2016, Copper Horse statue in Windsor Great park.
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