"On Landscape" (Project) Landscape is not a genre but a medium…[it is] a natural scene mediated by culture.....

From   http://londonist.com/2014/01/crowdfunding-london-january.php 

and  http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/on-landscape/?


On Landscape Crowdfunding Video from On Landscape on Vimeo.
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This project will only be funded if at least £1,750 is pledged by 4:44PM on Tuesday 21st January, 2014. Share it:

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Landscape is not a genre but a medium…[it is] a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a real place and its simulacrum, both a package and the commodity inside the package.”

-J.W.T. Mitchell, Landscape and Power

On Landscape # 1

On Landscape # 1, triggered by a series of conversations between artists Minna Kantonen, Dafna Talmor and Emma Wieslander revolves around a shared engagement with pictorial conventions of landscape. Wanting to extend this dialogue into a physical space of enquiry the exhibition will feature the work of the three artists, a display of publications sourced from an open call and a site-specific installation by invited artist Minna Pöllänen. Creating an interactive online presence via a dedicated website and transforming Guest Projects into a dynamic space in which thought-provoking debates can take place between fellow practitioners and a wide-ranging audience is the aim of the project. This project will serve as an ideal opportunity to pilot future versions of On Landscape.

As On Landscape # 1 seeks to instigate a series of discussions, raise questions and incite debate on representations of landscape, a central element of the project will consist of an open call for self-published, handmade or short run books relating to the exhibition framework. The publications, on display throughout the exhibition, will provide a platform for wider debates around landscape whilst presenting an opportunity for emerging practitioners to showcase their work.

On Landscape # 1 will take place at Yinka Shonibare's Guest Projects space in East London throughout the month of March 2014.   http://www.guestprojects.com/contact/

To keep up to date with our project please connect with us though Twitter (@OnLandscape_1) and Facebook where we will be posting news and updates regularly.

Events

Theoreticians and practitioners working in the field of landscape will be invited to contribute to the show through a series of events including an artist talk chaired by Photomonitor editor Christiane Monarchi, a panel discussion and walking crits. The exhibition aims to engage with landscape in its widest sense, extending beyond the physical space of the gallery through a themed local walk led by Minna Pöllänen and a live radio broadcast with contributing artists. Alongside the physical space of enquiry, an interactive social media presence and website will aim to capture public responses and encourage participation.

List of events:

·      An artists’ discussion chaired by Christiane Monarchi, Photomonitor editor 

·      A panel discussion exploring exhibition themes with invited guests

·      Walking crits will be an opportunity to dicuss projects and ideas with the exhibitiing artists

·      A local themed walk led by Minna Pöllänen looking at the biodiversity of the local area

·      A live radio broadcast

·      Curators’ talks for Fine Art/Photography students

Who We Are

Project co-curators and RCA Photography Alumnae Dafna Talmor, Minna Kantonen and Emma Wieslander are London-based artists.

Dafna Talmor’s photographs are included in private and public collections such as Deutsche Bank and Hiscox, featured in publications such as ArtReview, Camera Austria, Hotshoe, and Elephant. Talmor was nominated for the Paul Hamlyn Artist Award (2005), received the IV Daniela Chappard Biennale Photography Award (2007), Photofusion Select Bursary Award, a Grants for the Arts Award and selected for the Renaissance Photography Prize, Archisle # 2 Photography Open and the W-CA Contemporary Landscape Photography Open in 2013.

Minna Kantonen received the Research Residency Award at Art Gene, Barrow-in-Furness (2005) and an Arts Council of South West Finland Grant for 'A Small Book of Trees’ publication (2005). Recent shows include Photobook Show at Brighton Photo Biennial (2012) and The Jolly (Good) Show, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London (2010). Kantonen’s work has been featured in publications such as Source (IE) and Photographie (DE) and is currently a Principal Lecturer in Photography at the University of East London.

Emma Wieslander’s work has featured in magazines such as BON, Vogue and Harper’s and books such as The Collectors Guide to Emerging Art Photography and deep-north – transmediale 09. Exhibitions include Kaunas Photo Festival, Lithuania (2012), GSK Contemporary; Art of a Changing World at the Royal Academy of Art (2010), Internationale Fotografie II: into Landscape at Galerie Helmut Hartman (2009). Wieslander was recently awarded the Culturefund for Sweden and Finland grant for Distracted and Bewildered at Galleri Pictura.

Minna Pöllänen holds an MA with distinction in photography from London College of Communication. Her works have been shown in group and solo shows internationally including FreshFaced+WildEyed 2012 exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery in London, the biannual YOUNG ARTISTS exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Helsinki and Montreal/Brooklyn in Galerie Les Territoires in Montreal and A.I.R. Gallery in New York. Recent site-specific commissions include Observatory I, II and III, built in Brooklyn Bridge Park, downtown Montreal and downtown Helsinki. Pöllänen’s work has been kindly supported by The Kordelin Foundation, Arts Council of Finland, Frame Fund and The Finnish Cultural Foundation.

Your Support

The dedicated website and its contents of texts, images and podcasts will act as a valuable resource during and after the exhibition for anyone interested in the theme of landscape.Your support will specifically go towards producing professional promotional material as well as commissioning a professionally coded website. As our aim is to use the exhibition at Guest Projects as a platform of investigation for future On Landscape exhibitions and events a professional website will help us greatly.

The Pledges

We have tried to come up with a range of pledges so that everyone will find something they like. If you live outside of the UK you can, besides a HUGE THANK YOU and the digital postcard, go for the set of postcards or the specially designed posters, as well as the online portfolio review.

If you want to go for the portfolio review and have a preference on who you would like to meet please state this in your pledge.

A very large THANK YOU for your interest in our project and for your support!

We are looking forward to meeting you at Guest Projects in March 2014!

Dafna Talmor from the 'Constructed Landscapes' series

 

Minna Kantonen from the 'Urban Vistas' series

Emma Wieslander from the 'Burnt' series

Minna Pöllänen 'Establishing an Average' from the Nature Trail series

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More Landscape and Art in London...

Sean Vicary http://www.seanvicary.com/ explores a personal narrative of loss, longing and belonging in the Welsh borders in a landscape film, in an exhibition at www.standpointlondon.co.uk/

17 January – 15 February 2014

Opening: Thursday 16 January 6–8.30pm

Event with environmental writer and founding editor of the Dark Mountain Project Paul Kingsnorth: Sat 15 February 4pm

“Predatory life under advanced capitalism… a zone where nothing else – not bodies, social life, religion, or aesthetics – matters.” TJ Demos 2012

Discussed sporadically in the current surge of ‘new nature writing’ and continually in the heated debates around ecology, biodiversity and climate change in the press and blogosphere, is an acknowledged global crisis in our relationship to the nonhuman. We must, suggests Timothy Morton among others, come to terms with a radically decentred humanity: our “unbearable intimacy” and interdependence with other species (many of which are now under threat because of our own actions). Responses to this crisis are as diverse as advocating a programme of ‘re-wilding’  (restoring precious habitats to a pre-human state via the re-introduction of vanished native species) to consuming as much fossil fuel as possible to ‘bring on’ the crisis and thus force the governments /corporate behemoths to make the vast and complex global shifts in our capitalist system that is required to make the (impossible?) necessary difference.

Jane Bennett, with her writing on the vitality of matter, contributes greatly to the idea that as humans we must engage deeply and imaginatively with otherness in its many forms to promote a generous, thoughtful ethical response to that which is outside our direct self-interest. 

Edwina fitzPatrick explores what happens when 'grey' and 'green' environments intersect, and how human interactions have, and are, affecting the nature/culture/ecology of a place. Her projects also reflect upon how climate change may affect this delicate balance. Edwina often collaborates with experts across a range of disciplines. These have included horticulturalists, biodiversity experts, engineers, architects, perfumers, foresters, archivists, and composers. Edwina has made a new piece for (Un)natural Narratives that forwards her proposition that the green environment is a landscape-archive. Wood for the Trees embeds miniature forests into an old encyclopaedia - questioning what we consider a natural landscape to be and raising the historically and politically determined nature of most of our supposedly ‘wild’ spaces in the UK. 

In 2010 Eleanor Morgan travelled to Folly Island off South Carolina to create a golden ring from the silk of a local spider. She was following a tale of a soldier stationed there during the American Civil war who discovered the spider, created a machine to spin the silk into jewellery, and sold it as real gold. Eleanor found the spider, collected its silk and made the ring, but the effects of Folly Island continue. (Un)natural Narratives displays just a small selection of her ongoing projects into islands, follies, searching and phantasies, including a lithographed island-table and a video depicting her peculiar transformation into an undersea creature.

Sean Vicary’s extraordinary film Lament interweaves site-specific found objects, animation, spoken word and music to explore a personal narrative of loss, longing and belonging in the Welsh borderlands. The film incorporates Canu Heledd, a 7th Century Welsh poem cycle dealing with the fall of the Brythonic Kingdom of Pengwern, which referred to, Vicary discovered, the small rural village in Shropshire where he went to school. “I’m fascinated how the land has been shaped by generations of interaction with the environment – the enclosure of the commons, how the field names on old tithe maps are echoed in the remains of cottages and broken pipe stems that appear during ploughing, how everything exists simultaneously on different time scales: 8 bee lifespans to one fieldmouse, 40 mouse lifespans to one human, 4 human lifespans to one oak tree etc.”

Edwina fitzPatrick is based in London, and is currently completing her AHRC funded, practice-based PhD, which has involved working with the Forestry Commission at Grizedale in Cumbria.  Other recent projects include the Reputationsprogramme of sited artworks, in Castlemilk, Glasgow.
<http://www.edwinafitzpatrick.co.uk>

Eleanor Morgan is an artist and researcher based in London. She completed her doctoral studies in 2013 at the Slade School of Fine Art on the human uses of spider silk.  Recent exhibitions and presentations include: The Making of Folly Island (Solo), Slade Research Centre, London; Duet, UCL Art Museum, London, 2013; A Labour of Moles, dOCUMENTA(13), Kassel, 2012; Spinning with Spiders, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2011; Lines of Desire, Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, 2010; Fine Things to be Seen, Intervention Gallery, London, 2010.
<http://eleanormorgan.com>

Sean Vicary is a moving image artist based in West Wales. Recent work includes commissions for Animate Projects /Channel 4 Random Acts, Blinc Digital Arts Festival 2013 and Rhôd: Future, Nature, Culture. Recent exhibitions include Welsh Artist of The Year, St David’s Hall, Cardiff, Temporary Residence, Aid & Abet, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, OAF International Film Festival, ArKo Art Center, Seoul, Korea.
<http://www.seanvicary.com>

This exhibition has been curated by Fiona MacDonald

Further information: Fiona MacDonald: 0207 739 4921 / standpointgallery@btconnect.com
Venue:   Standpoint Gallery, 45 Coronet Street, London N1 6HD
Gallery Open:  Wednesday – Saturday, 12-6pm
Web:  www.standpointlondon.com

Contemporary Art at Whitechapel Art Gallery LANDSCAPES

Contemporary Art Society: Damn braces: Bless relaxes

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/contemporary-art-society-damn-braces-bless-relaxes

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10 December 2013 - 9 March 2014
Gallery 7

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With works ranging from John Constable to Grayson Perry, this exhibition represents scenes of the English east coast from the past 200 years. Artworks consider the influence of technology and local art schools and are drawn from the collections of Contemporary Art Society member museums and galleries in the region.

The display’s title is taken from William Blake’s The Proverbs of Hell, from his illustrated poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c 1789) and a copy of Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job owned by poet Lord Alfred Tennyson is on show here, complemented by a recording of Tennyson’s written descriptions of the Lincolnshire countryside.

 From the early Norwich Society of Artists (1803–1833) to the progressive Time-Based Art course in Hull during the 1990s, artists and students have looked to the local landscape to express their ideas. John Sell Cotman and Peter De Wint see it divided by landowners and industry in the 19th century, while Fran Cottell and Simon Poulter look at the privatisation of land during the Thatcher era. Their responses make a case for freedom of movement through use of medieval common land law and more recently an open source ‘creative commons’ culture online.

This display is part of the Gallery’s programme to open up public and private collections and is made in collaboration with the Contemporary Art Society and Curatorial Fellow Helen Kaplinsky who is hosted by the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull. This year-long series of displays is supported by a major grant from Arts Council England. The Contemporary Art Society supports museums and galleries across the UK, through advice, advocacy and gifts for purchasing works of art.

Ralph Hedley Charlton, Gypsies, Camped on the Beach, near South Shields, 1876, Oil on canvas 41 x 54 cm South Shields Museum & Art Gallery © Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums londonlandscapeob...

Admission free

 
The Whitechapel Gallery's programme of collection displays is supported by: 


Contemporary Art Society Winter Events Programme
6 February Gallery Talk: Helen Kaplinsky on the Contemporary Art Society Display
13 February Symposium: Landscapes: From the Romantic to the Digital Age
Image Credit:
Fran Cottell A Meeting Outside Time 1988, performance documentation, courtesy the artist, photo: Karen Melvin.

New York City’s Hidden Subway Station

I have done my bit for championing the lost network of tunnels from London's underground railways

SEE http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-art-of-underground-150-years-of-re.html

http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/more-on-london-underground-lost-station.html

http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/mail-rail-photographic-exhibition.html

http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/old-vic-tunnels-director-says-venue.html

I thought you might be interested in New York's for comparison - when I saw this....

http://www.travelettes.net/new-york-city%E2%80%99s-hidden-subway-station/

New York City’s Hidden Subway Station

WRITTEN BY SOPHIE 24 FEBRUARY 2012


Deep in the belly of New York’s subway system, a beautiful untouched station resides that has been forgotten for years with only a limited few knowing of its existence. Stunning decoration with tall tiled arches, brass fixtures and skylights run across the entire curve of the station, almost a miniature imitation of Grand Central Station… But it sounds like something straight out of Harry Potter, right?

image http://nagonthelake.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/new-york-citys-secret-subway-station.html

It was opened in 1904, with the hope of making it the crowning glory of the New York subway system in elegant architecture and a place for commemorative plaques to honour the work that had resulted in such a successful underground mass transit system. It was to be the original southern terminus of the first ‘Manhattan Main Line’; however the station was closed and boarded up in 1945. The gem of the underground began gathering dust, forgotten by the general public, as passengers were forced off at the Brooklyn Bridge Stop before the train continued on to the terminus to make its turnaround.

image http://www.visualnews.com/2012/01/13/hidden-splendor-nycs-abandoned-city-hall-station/

image http://gothamist.com/2007/02/05/a_visit_to_the.php

image http://secondavenuesagas.com/2008/03/17/heading-into-the-crown-jewel-of-the-old-subway-system/

The reason for its closure was that newer longer cars were required to match the demand of passengers that passed through the system. But as the stations tracks were severely curved, a dangerous gap between the train doors and the platform was formed making it an unsafe area. This combined with the fact that only about 600 people used it, resulted in its closure with only mythical plans of turning it into a transit museum. But this was never followed through.

image http://www.chasingray.com/archives/2009/11/new_yorks_forgotten_undergroun.html

However, now you don’t have to take my word that the secret City Hall Station exists, as the 6 Train will now allow the passengers who have been enlightened with the knowledge of its whereabouts to stay on the train during its turnaround and see the Station. You won’t be able to get off, but you’ll be taken for a slow tour of the platform and see what a beauty it was in its heyday!

image http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662679/stunning-nyc-subway-station-hidden-in-plain-sight-until-now

And if that isn’t enough, The Underbelly Project has turned it into a kind-of off-limits art gallery. They are a group of street artists who have painted the walls of the unattractive concrete areas with their art in a spooky art exhibition that will be witnessed only by urban explorers who prowl the deep train system at night and Metropolitan Transportation Authority workers.

http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2010/11/abandoned-new-york-subway-station-becomes-secret-art-gallery.html

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/11/where-is-new-york-citys-secret-subway-art-gallery/

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/11/where-is-new-york-citys-secret-subway-art-gallery/

http://www.e-junkie.info/2011/04/underbelly-project-secretly-creating.html

Over a hundred murals have been accumulated over time by graffiti artists, namely PAC and Workhorse (infamous NYC graffitists), who discovered the bare walls and invited others to add their art.

http://www.e-junkie.info/2011/04/underbelly-project-secretly-creating.html

But if you want to go and view these art works, you will most definitely run the high risk of being arrested as venturing the tunnels is both highly illegal and dangerous! I’ll just stick to seeing the photographs as I’m pretty sure my search for art would turn into a horror story down in the black tunnels… or I’d get hit by a train.

http://nagonthelake.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/new-york-citys-secret-subway-station.html


See ALSO  http://www.e-junkie.info/2011/04/underbelly-project-secretly-creating.html

Estuary - exhibition

Estuary

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Docklands/Whats-on/Exhibitions-Displays/Estuary.htm

Ken Worpole -environmentalist -  visited the Estuary exhibition which opened last week at the Museum of London Docklands (from http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2013/05/estuary-museum-of-london-docklands/) : 

This is a terrific exhibition: a must for all who love the Thames. Not surprisingly, for a museum based in the capital’s former docklands, the focus of the permanent collection – as well as this bold excursion into the contemporary arts – is the river east of Tower Bridge, recording the remnants of the industrial and imperial history of the Thames as it winds and widens out to join the sea. There’s a real feel for the wind and the waves, and the smack of saltwater in nearly every contribution. Its success may encourage the transformation of the Docklands Museum into a major new public gallery for contemporary work about this great historical mind-altering space. Let’s hope so.

No expense has been spared promoting ‘Estuary’. The opening night was jam-packed with people and awash with beer, champagne and oysters. Happily the exhibition remained the star: the crowds appeared galvanised by the vitality of the work and the way it had been curated and presented. Two large panoramic canvases by Jock McFadyen, of the river at Purfleet and at Dagenham, are hung to perfection – his work has never been exhibited so strongly. They hang beside canvases – one large and one small – by Michael Andrews, a major artist who died before his time and whose work is still too little known: both paintings are suffused with the browns, greys and greens of the estuary. Close by are two series of photographs of the Thames shoreline, one by Peter Marshall and the other by Gayle Chong Kwan, animated by enigmatic detail. A large photograph of Southend Pier by Simon Roberts mysteriously seems to detach the historic pier from its funfair hinterland, part of a long term project by the photographer to document Britain’s historic piers using a traditional 4” X 5” plate camera.

If you intend to visit – and you would miss something quite moving and profound if you don’t – allow plenty of time. At least half of the contributions are in the form of film, slide-show or digital installation. The longest of these, Portrait of a River (2013) by Nikolaj Bendix Slyum Larsen, at just under an hour long, is worth watching from start to finish: a lovely piece of beautifully structured social documentary. John Smith’s digital film installation Horizon (Five Pounds a Belgian) (2012), a wall-to-wall screening with haunting tidal roars and retreats, portrays views of the sea close to Margate, and is equally mesmerising. And there are at least three other film/slide installations to keep you occupied for another hour and a half at least. So give over an afternoon for a visit.

Too often when confronted with challenging landscapes, contemporary artists resort to trickery or kitsch. Fortunately, there seems to be something about the Thames as a working river which demands respect and honesty. There isn’t a trivial or pretentious piece to be found in ‘Estuary’, a muscular and eloquent triumph of commissioning and curating which subtly challenges the values of the surrounding corporate skyline. In the 1970s people turned their backs on the rivers and canals of Britain as somehow belonging to a grim, redundant past. The revival of interest in shoreline life and aesthetics is growing fast, and this exhibition consolidates a welcome return to the sea.

17 May – 27 October 2013

Estuary brings together the work of 12 artists who have been inspired by the outer limits of the Thames where the river becomes the sea. The exhibition marks the 10th anniversary of the Museum of London Docklands, a converted Georgian warehouse on West India Quay. 

With its dramatic landscape – desolate mudflats and saltmarshes, vast open skies, container ports, power stations and seaside resorts – the Estuary has long been a rich source of inspiration for artists and writers. Through film, photography, painting and printmaking, the contemporary artists featured in this exhibition offer new insight into this often overlooked, yet utterly compelling, environment and the people that live and work there.

Featured artworks:

• Thames Film, William Raban
• Seafort Project, Stephen Turner
• Thames Painting: The Estuary and Study for The Estuary, Michael Andrews
• Purfleet: from Dracula’s Garden and Dagenham, Jock McFadyen
• Horizon (Five Pounds a Belgian), John Smith
• Southend Pier 2011, from the series Pierdom, Simon Roberts
• Medway, Christiane Baumgartner
• 51º 29'.9" North - 0º11' East, Rainham Barges, Bow Gamelan Ensemble
• The Golden Tide, Gayle Chong Kwan
  Jaunt, Andrew Kötting
• Thames Gateway, Peter Marshall
• A new film commission by Nikolaj Larsen

FREE entry

Groups of 10 or more people should book their visit in advance on 020 7001 9844. Groups can also book an exclusive curator talk to discover more about the artworks on display and learn how the Estuary has inspired historical and contemporary artists and writers (£10 per person for groups of 20 or more or a £200 flat fee for groups of less than 20).

Take a look at our Museum of London Docklands events inspired by Estuary

Media partner

New commission in partnership with