Toil & Trouble: How We Find Out Who We Are is an artist-led curatorial project which seeks to understand the exhibition as a site of research, and collaboration as a means to investigate the way meaning is constructed. This method proposes conversation and rearrangement as an ethos for an exhibition that changes across its duration and becomes a catalyst for exploring how control of meaning is shared and surrendered in a group dynamic. 

Anna Fairchild, Lucy Renton, and Sue Withers will negotiate the initial curation and installation of their new works at the Lincoln Arts Centre Gallery, which half-way through its run will be ‘disrupted’ by Lincoln-based artist collective General Practice as a way of publicly extending the critical conversation the artists have begun. [gP] will have carte blanche to rearrange the show, moving or subtracting works, adding works of their own, or introducing whatever they consider appropriate to alter visitors’ experience.

The intention is to explore ways to extend the ‘lifetime’ of an exhibition for artists working in a self-sustaining and largely non-commercial context. Most UK artists do not have a personal or institutional patron, or curator to stimulate work or brief them on their development. Yet a thriving artist-led independent scene survives. This exhibition talks to that context, by sharing in public the critical conversation that goes into the making and curation of work beyond the buzz of the private view. 

Self-initiated shows often have a “boom and bust” emotional framework that finishes with the opening night. This method helps us to look again and presents a transparent look at the artistic process and creative ways of thinking and generating work.

If humans are to survive, they must participate in their own evolution. This means discovering, more than defining, ourselves through our engagement with others. 

This show proposes a methodology based in conscious collective evolution, rather than self-determination, using conversation and rearrangement as an ethos for an exhibition that changes across its duration and becomes a catalyst for exploring how control of meaning is shared and surrendered in a group dynamic. 

The initial installation of works will be agreed between three artists – Ali Darke, Lucy Renton and Sue Withers – whose practices intersect around axes of craft, the domestic and female labour, negotiate the boundaries of decorum; that which society deems appropriate in culture, language, behaviour and taste. Through the aesthetics of domestic decoration, the industry of grooming, and the unruly body they consider what is disparaged as feminine excess. 

Invited to intervene in the show midway, Eric Great–Rex will have an open brief to ’disrupt’, to alter and re-stage it. This activity becomes the focus for a public discussion between the artists and the ‘Disruptor’ and the re-staged exhibition remains open to the public. There are effectively two shows, before and after the ‘Disruption’, with a public sharing of the critical process of its alteration. 

Ruth Jones & Sue Withers

Playing with ideas of extending and refusing care, the artists have each selected works that explore the tension between gendered perceptions of care and femininity, and how acts of refusal can create contentious spaces of agency. 

The exhibition title pays homage to Janine Antoni’s performance (1993) which recognised, in turn, the “Maintenance Art” of Mierle Laderman Ukeles (1973). These feminist acts of sincere care were also gentle, but insistent, rebuttals of the prescriptions inherent to the performance of gender.

Between Walls is an escape from the online and digital spaces into which we have recently been squeezed. We are resisting exhibiting in the virtual environment in favour of the real; real space, real time and real experience. 

With new works from Ali Darke, Andrew Moller, Carmen Alemán, Christian Groothuizen, David Watkins, Paul Greenleaf, Ralph Overill, Ruth Jones, Sue Withers and William Bishop-Stevens. 

Exhibiting together through their connection to the Fine Art Professional Doctorate at the University of East London, each artist has missed the experience of the physical exhibition, a form of research vital to the development of their artistic practice. Loose affinities exist between their individual interests and the works shown, but it is the necessity of material engagement which has truly brought this group together. 

Access Information is available here: http://maverickprojects.co.uk/safe-house-12/facilities/ 

In keeping with current guidelines, access to the venue is restricted to 10 visitors for each 45 minutes slot.

The policies that affect our lives, that govern our bodies, our governing bodies. Who is writing what for whom, and who will ever read it?

An exhibition about the work that goes into making art work.

Second Year Showcase

First Year Showcase