[this event]
In the corner of Preston’s Tourist Information Office is a small occasional table. The middle is cut away to reveal a television screen upon which flashes lines of text. Sometimes the words make sentences and sometimes they proclaim or murmur what appear to be thoughts and observations.
The text originates from the forms [proposals] filled in by the artists that took part in Prestival [this event] and crystallise their themes, making public news from the artists’ essentially private actions.
The Tourist Information Office provided a supportive context as a location because the work itself is a visitor, standing among the leaflets and souvenirs, wondering what might catch its eye.

This work in progress by Hetain touches upon a number of interests in his practice, including semiotics, cultural heritage and Indian tabla drumming. Based around the fundamental 16 beat rhythm cycle called ‘tintaal’ from Indian classical music, the performance is improvised around its structure. This rhythmic base to the piece is delineated by way of a ritualistic body markation projected onto Hetain’s torso, which uses Indian kanku pigment to allude to both the Hindu Swastika and the St George’s cross.

During the course of a day Charles Quick install this own independent electrical infrastructure through out the streets of Preston. This took the form of siting 16 separate LED flashing light units attached to any useful piece of architecture or existing street objects, sometimes sharing existing street lighting columns.

Then as a result of people interacting with the work the objects slowly disappeared within the period of hour’s, days and weeks after the work had been installed. This was a project which subtlety intervened into the urban environment while drawing our attention to the multi-facetted structures which exist within it.

Photograph by Stuart Carter

Predominantly research based I investigate themes of histories, of specific people or sites.

Using a multi-disciplinary approach I allow the work to evolve which often results in a site specific installation. My approach incorporates oral histories, genealogy searches, collaborations with people or persons who have a direct connection to the site or artefacts uncovered.

The primary inspiration for this body of work was ‘Bright Street’. By choosing this abandoned street and the displacement of its residents, I was interested in ways in which a building can affects us, not only by what we know about its history but also by what is communicated through its architecture, its interior space and the traces of its past..

Live art installation

Deliverance: 1. A formal pronouncement. 2. The rescue from moral corruption. 3. Delivery in the sense of carrying, distributing or surrendering to something.

This work was the second in my Deliverance series* and similarly stands spite-specific to the art gallery context. The work’s meaning rests as much in the dedicated physical act of the artist as it does in the finished artwork, in this case a large image of the Union Jack composed from the act of kissing out on paper the forms of pencils and paintbrushes. Anyone viewing the work in progress at the Harris Art Gallery might have been struck by a paradox – an artist creating an artwork surrounded by old masters yet spelling out in large letters below the flag in dedicated kiss marks the slogan “I am a philosopher.”

This reflects a current interest in my practice to posit the importance of the artist as a special type of philosopher, where philosophy is broadly understood as a human faculty and extension of Being rather than as the traditional academic discipline we usually encounter it through. The special contribution of the artist-thinker to this realm is that the artist is not usually satisfied by abstract concepts alone, there is an impulse to mould matter through that thought and through the body.

Kissing represents an act of love and physical labour made possible via the body, kneeling at the work represents submission to the greater task (of founding Art) in hand. The resulting slogan-image can be read as a type of graffiti which creatively subverts the goals of the institution it proclaims itself within; standing out as some sort of claim for identity otherwise not accorded as well as communicating an instruction for life.

The Deliverance series neither rejects nor embraces the art gallery institution. Instead, for all their physical presence and durational labour, the works hover ambiguously suggesting a plurality of possible art contexts ‘in waiting.’ The pieces also function, in terms of their creator, as expressions of empowerment and artistic identity within what seems to be a very unphilosophical (art)world.

*Deliverance I involved the creation of a red carpet via lipstick kisses on the steps of the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, 2003.

The work I produced for the Prestival is a short edit of a series of short films I created for a previous exhibition. The films are about life, and about people. Sometimes they are planned with lots of detail, but more often than not they are created with little or no planning at all. I use an exiting range of subtle editing techniques after the filming, where I work with sound and speed. They are not made to have a certain desired effect on the viewer nor are made to change nor create opinions. Instead they are made to be enjoyed, and I like the viewer to be able to take from them whatever they please.

I make artwork, which investigates cultural memories, identities, history and places: through performance, rituals, film, photography and the Internet. I often work in collaboration with artists, people, audiences, and in response to a specific place.

Trailing Ivy is a live performance, an active investigation in to memories and places that hold significance.

‘Archive H’ by Lisa Stansbie is based on the notion that everything can be connected.  Seemingly random objects, images, people, text, films, events and places can be linked to each other in a variety of ways.

Archive H is a digital archive, structured as an offline website of links.  The starting point for the connections is 18 objects selected from The Harris Museum collection.  By clicking on each object the user is taken on a journey of connections and is able to navigate a chosen path through seemingly random objects and information.  The connections sometimes overlap, occasionally stop and at times end back where they started.

The Internet was used in the construction of Archive H as an endless unedited source of information that was then organised and curated. 

Visually ‘Archive H’ resembles a traditional (digital) archive and as a result users may take each page to be factual, particularly due to the location within The Harris Museum.  However entwined amongst the factual there are also fictional entries resulting in fact and fiction becoming undistinguishable.

The Butt Ballot cigarette bin is an engaging take on what is traditionally a dull utility object.
The primary aim of the bin is to reduce the amount of cigarette butts littering the streets of the UK. The 120 tonnes of butts dropped in the UK each day (before the indoor smoking ban) are not only an eye-sore and an environmental problem but actually affect people’s behaviour by being a catalyst for other littering.

By encouraging smokers to vote with their cigarette butts instead of simply discarding them, used butts suddenly have another use and added meaning. This makes for a cleaner, more interesting public realm all round.

Tidal Properties Ltd. is a property development company responsible for the regeneration of the recently discovered community of houses in the walls of Maryport Harbour, Cumbria. The homes are accessible at low tide only and are available for purchase throughout the duration of normal business hours during Prestival. The recently discovered houses, (once home to a community of boat people) when renovated, will suit first time buyers or investors looking for a second income.

Stood in the window of the former offices of Preston FM, Claire created a drawing directly onto the glass, capturing outlines of figures as they passed along Church Street.  The drawing, created using a paint marker, builds up during the performance, creating an image of a crowd.

The people pass by, sometimes oblivious, sometimes walking briskly to escape the artist’s squinting eye.  Those that stop to watch the creation of the drawing become a part of the event; realising that they are the subject of the current outline, a tension occurs where they are unsure whether to remain still or run away.