*apologies for any cross posting - but please forward on!*
from Monday 15th March [shift] @ unit 60-63 Merrion Superstore, Leeds
Please note we are now taking bookings for performances by phillip HENDERSON, gayle CHONG KWAN and john DUMMETT (see below for more details) and free tickets for the Brudenell Social Club will be available in the unit from Monday. Please email your name, contact details and number of places required to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Read on for more detailed information, check out the web site at www.emerged.net, visit us at unit 60-63, Merrion Superstore, Merrion Centre, Leeds, open Mon-sat 9am-5pm (closed wed afternoons)
WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU SOON!
PRESS RELEASE 12/3/04
[shift], is E m e r g e D’s exploration into what really lies beneath the everyday city. Focusing specifically on Leeds, the art project launches on the 15th March and runs through to the 3rd April at unit 60-63, the Merrion Superstore, Merrion Centre, Leeds. Eighteen artists from across the UK will perform and showcase their work along with professional practice days, seminars and, an educational area for those wishing to find out more.
The artists practice a range of media, placing particular emphasis on process, offering work that is often hard to show effectively in the context of conventional art spaces. [shift] proposes a different way of viewing this work by opening up the ‘Process Lab’ an experimental period of 2 weeks where artists will be working in the unit and the city centre. This culminates in the final week, where an exhibition of the work will be put together, alongside further researching and live performances.
During the week of the 15th March, The 3rd Person will be taking their camera out to the public, interviewing members of the community and representatives of Leeds’ refugee community to give voice to the unheard. It will culminate in a video projection, sound and image installation.
On Saturday 20th March we are hosting the New Work Yorkshire day , NWY is a bi-monthly touring space for artists working in ‘new work’* art forms. It provides a discussion space and forum of support for artists. Artists performing and showing work as part of the day are amy TODMAN, amelia CROUCH, sarah SPANTON and steven LOADER.
The Independent Art School seminar takes place on 25th March 2-5pm. An artist’s artwork itself, the IAS explores how the artist exists within the institution, primarily the University system and has set itself up as an autonomous space where artists and thinkers can critically and creatively explore issues from diverse viewpoints.
‘A set of surreal games that can be played by the audience’, this is the pretext to phil HENDERSON’s work and will take place at 2pm on the 27th March in the city centre (performances start at the unit, please book in advance as places are limited). His work heavily focuses on the relationship between performer and audience as well as the nature of public space and what it means to us.
graeme MURRELL will be capturing the everyday sounds of the Merrion Centre, and once collected, they will be let loose at the Brudenell Social Club (7pm, 27th March) and accompanied by an unusual musical collective known as The F*ks. Graeme aims to draw our attention to the sounds of everyday…and to render them fantastic. The performance night at the Brudenell will also feature REACTOR performing, ‘GHAOS_ZX - Return of the Eggbox’ – a set of technological ideas gone mad, the ‘characters’ will be crossing the border in to Yorkshire to make us all use our I.C.S. Additionally, V3CTOR DJ’s ED 1 and PLANK will be bringing us their inimitable electronic sounds and we will have a very short intervention from the PIPITS.
gayle chong KWAN’s work investigates food, and how its associated memories can transport visitors to other times and places. She will be creating sensory maps of Leeds and leading a series of walks around the city on Saturday 27th March and 3rd April. In contrast, juliana CAPES uses food, specifically chewing gum, in a more visual sense. She charts the chewing gum ‘constellations’ that line the pavements as a way of finding alternative meanings and aesthetics in the functional, urban landscape.
Live street performance brings john DUMMETT back to Leeds. His ‘City Centre address’ will invite interaction from the audience with public space and will see John perform, discuss and write in the city centre. The performances will take place on 2nd and 3rd April, booking is strongly advised if you wish to participate.
The Merrion Centre Car Park will provide the source for camilla BRUETON’s artwork. She will uncover the stories hidden within this bleakly functional space, dissecting its importance in the city and researching its history. She will host a classic car tea party on the roof to commemorate the 40th anniversary of this, Leeds’ first multi-storey car park, on the 3rd April.
Parodying our organised worlds and deliberately injecting ambiguity to the regulated city is the theme of dan ROBINSON’s work. ‘Conversation’s with Places 2’ will see posters fly-posted to city columns, which appear to publicise something but actually offer incomplete answers, playing havoc with the sense of order we hold dear in this information era. lucy GIBSON plays with our psychological and geographical borders within the city and how authorities and private companies map our work and social boundaries. Also working with the language of the advertising poster the work will exist ephemerally within the city centre for the duration of [shift].
jo BRIGGS, a digital artist from Leeds, will be bringing us a virtual reality exploration of the hidden narratives of the Merrion Centre. She will be working throughout the Process Lab and the work will be available to view on the internet.
danny HOLCROFT will be using the theme of chance in his artworks. Depending on a set of pre-outlined factors, Danny will be taken on a route around the city. He will write about the events that occur around him, before taking up sketchpad and finally producing a piece of work in the site that fate has governed him to.
The intense and repetitive actions of niki RUSSELL’s performances will seek to explore and reveal the temporary and elusive within the Superstore and the city, whilst ed ORTON’s constructions will provide functional sculptural interventions that are crucial to the operation of the project.
The lost narratives of second hand postcards bought in the Superstore are the starting point for the haunting images of åsa ANDERSSON whereas steve DUTTON and steve SWINDELLS will be playing with text in a different way; broadcasting consumer information through collaborating with an opera singer who will perform sporadically and unannounced through the city centre.
The nature of the project means that things will be changing and developing as time goes on. Please visit us at the unit and keep an eye on the web site for the latest event news and times.
To book on to a performance or simply to ask a question, please email us at [EMAIL PROTECTED].
We look forward to seeing you at the unit soon.
*’new work’ includes the fields of performance, live art, new theatre, new dance, installation, video art, digital art, time-based and interdisciplinary arts including those that embrace new technologies.
