AOH/New Grounds

2020 | Body/NoBody

Body/NoBody is an exhibition that creates a dialogue between the physical and digital realm. It’s curated and programmed by New Grounds (Idil Bozkurt) and Gallery Lock In (Beth Troakes) as part of Artists Open Houses 2020. Featuring works from emerging artists working in photography, augmented reality, performance, illustration and print-making, the exhibition will explore the implications of presence, isolation, shared spaces, absence, omnipotence and dissonance.

The subject of collective memory underpins this diverse group of works, confronting the inherent dichotomy of mark making as a tool for recollection. Particularly with the photograph, which marks the absence of the subject it presents, it also holds the potential to cement it in time. Between the physical installation and online gallery, the show will ask if memories can be stored in objects, in lines of code, in traces of what has been left behind and whether we lose these markers in the digital realm where everything is constantly perpetuated as present. Are digital spaces dangerous for collective memory, do they bring us together or push us further apart?

Body/NoBody / 2020
From the online installation

Body/NoBody / 2020
From the physical installation at Gallery Lock In

Human Conditions: Storytelling Through Mixed Media
Workshop with David Shrigley

As part of this programme, artist David Shrigley, ambassador to the 2020 Artists Open Houses festival, generously extended his expertise for a series of workshops with our selected artists. These workshops took place across the late summer and were an opportunity for the artists to share their on-going projects with David and receive one-on-one feedback as well as group critique.

Body/NoBody / 2020
From the online workshop with David Shrigley

2019 | Fake/Make

❇'Fake it till you make it' ❇
The New Grounds programme takes this phrase as a start point, exploring the subject of ‘making’ and ‘faking’ through speculation and self-reflection using various art forms. Why do we fake it? What happens to the intention of 'making' in the act of 'faking'? Does the by-product lose face value or the original purpose of the creation? Faking can be seen as being a fabricator or a charlatan; but can it also be a role-play, disguising, transforming and perhaps enabling the artist’s creative act? When faking precedes making, how does this affect the artistic process?

New Grounds artists consider 'faking/making' as a reflective relationship, disclosing personal experiences within the artists’ practices via sound performances, multimedia installations and workshops.

Fake/Make / 2019
From the physical installation at The Old Market