Social Bonds (Unearthing project / Tate Exchange)

From discussing 'social justice' last Saturday to 'restoring social bond through communal activity' and our voices this week. Still working with London clay, more objects were made by participants at Tate Exchange in response to these themes, the found objects on the river bed (see previous post) and the clay pieces modelled last weekend.

collection display (part of)

Knots, which recorded dancers moves last Saturday, now became signs and symbols of what connects us all. We all had a great time relating to each other through the process of making and I think the objects did too - see below.

More info on the Unearthing can be found on other posts on this blog as well as this and this link.

beachcombed bounty and clay fragments

early Victorian porcelain and London clay pipes (fragments)

found object and three types of clay

clay knot, pipes and unknown metal object

two chains

knot and hook

clay and ceramic

clay and iron

grey clay

London clay knots

more knots

last ties

Spatial Justice (Unearthing project / Tate Exchange)

warming up

displaying unearthed collections

Eva laying out the beach combed bounty

found objects

more found objects and inspiration for tea trollety dancers

modelled dancing score

another modelled dancing score

Tanztheater Adrian Look (TAL) and tea trolley moves

modelling a move - finger dance

modelling another move (TAL)

spatial justice in action - tea trolley dancing

spatial justice in action - Tanztheater Adrian Look

Rebecca and Eva introducing speakers 
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos and Yoriko Otomo

mud to mud (Unearthing project / Walton-on-the-Naze)

I’ve started collecting London clay for Unearthing, a collaborative project with The People’s Bureau at Tate Modern and Stave Hill Ecological Park – see also previous posts.

A few months back we collected clay from the river bed near London Bridge. On this occaskion I collected some in a purer form on the beach at Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex. The Naze is a gorgeous and very unstable landscape, eroded by tidal waters which expose red crag and London clay, that is then reclaimed by the sea.

While collecting small lumps of clay strewn around the beach we came across bricks, yellow in colour, looking like traditional London brick. We also came across wall made from misshapen bricks, most probably rejects from a local brickery. The bricks were being washed out to sea, a 50+ million year old cycle was being looped - clay, shaped into bricks, fired, then becoming clay again... Ecology in action!

I walked back to the studio to process the clay and felt like a complete vandal when I started grating it in order to dry it. We soaked it, sieved it and dried it again, this time on a plaster bat to make plastic clay. 

Once the clay has been modelled, fired and pieces installed, I’ll simply have to walk back to the beach and throw the work in the water... I'm not one to get in the way of nature doing it's thing!

time to talk (Unearthing Project / Tate Exchange)

Here they are, images of the pilot event of Unearthing at Tate Modern on January 25^th, a collaboration between myself and The People’s Bureau in partnership with Tate Modern and Stave Hill Ecological Park.

Strangers holding hands while plaster, then dental alginate - safer apparently, health and safety gone mad if you ask me! - is poured into them. For the time it took for the plaster/alginate to set, these couples were committed to each other and engaged in conversation, prompted by short text read to them addressing issues around regeneration and foundation of the city. The cast were kept as mementoes of these conversations, together with notes written by the participants in response to the converstaions and activity.