We’ve got a very exciting project happening at the hostel throughout October and November. East Street Arts and Janine Sykes are collaborating with a whole host of artists, as part of Seeding Art Currency. Not only can you share your own experiences of the hostel here you can also come to a variety of workshops, performances and talks. Here’s a little update on what you can expect.
The Harvest. Performance by Nii Kwartey Owoo
Wednesday 24 October, 6-7pm
Performance: 30 minutes followed by sharing of food.
The Harvest is Nii’s personal response to the struggle of hunger and sacrifice found in his community. Through rhythm and movement, this dance performance presents how cultures and beliefs have the power to unify people in finding solutions, in this piece to hoot at hunger.
Nii Kwartey Owoo is a musician and dance artist from Ghana whose work focuses on traditional cultural practices found in West Africa and diaspora communities. In this performance, Nii will share with the audience the role of corn in his culture, including dance, music, chants and food.
Curator, Louise Dwyer, invites you to relate to seeding through dance and storytelling at this event showcasing Nii’s performance of The Harvest, which is based on the cultural significance of corn in Ghanaian culture and history. The event is a passionate live performance by Nii Kwartey Owoo in the Art Hostel space.
Book your place, here.
Seeding a Sensuous Society. Gry Worre Hallberg
Wednesday 31 October, 5:30-7:30pm
Join Gry Worre Hallberg, artistic director of Sisters Hope (ongoing project Sisters Academy, Denmark) for a talk about the large-scale project, Sisters Academy – The School of a Sensuous Society exploring new modes of sensuous learning, followed by an immersive poetic self exercise.
Gry’s research and art practice entails sensuous learning ‘takeovers’ of institutions e.g. schools. She is an advocate that sensuous learning can be embedded (seeded) in every day life and this has many benefits to individuals and society. Taking part in the immersive poetic self exercise provides you with the opportunity to explore these benefits first-hand.
We recommend you book early as this event is limited to fifteen people.
#foundfiction – the launch
Tuesday 6 November, 5:30-7:30pm
Join us for the launch of #foundfiction, a night of talks, stories and spoken word.
#foundfiction is a global guerrilla publishing network. In its month-long installation at the Art Hostel, travellers are invited to co-create a short story one line at a time at a writing desk in the communal area.
The first line will be inspired by ideas on the Seeding Art Currency map.
Book your place, here.
World of Forms (mural). Bobbi Rae
Tuesday 13 November, 6:30-7:30pm
Join artist, Bobbi Rae in discussion with Janine Sykes, where she will share her inspirations for her colourful murals and playful practice.
The contributions to the virtual ‘Seeding Art Currency’ world map are in a state of becoming in ‘World of Forms’. The abstract shapes in this mural painted directly on the wall in the project space, are based on the world map by multi-disciplinary artist and designer Bobbi Rae. Throughout the duration of the project the patterns made by pins in the virtual map are represented with real seeds, placed directly on the mural by anyone who’d like to be involved.
Murals are one of the many media in which Bobbi Rae creates her colourful works – always characterised by a mix of cleverness and playfulness. An early inspiration for Rae is the dense spectacle narrative found in The Garden of Earthly Delights, painted by Hieronymus Bosch. Come along to find out more about Bobbi’s work.
Book your place, here.
[Untitled] Vinyl Print Installation. Joy Hindmoor
Tuesday 20 November, 6:30-7:30pm
Join Joy Hindmoor in discussion with Janine Sykes, where she is to share her inspirations and working processes such as working with colour and natural forms such as bacteria, shells and seeds. Joy’s installation for Seeding Art Currency depicts colourful (hand-cut) vinyl seeds that climb up the hostel wall. Joy recently graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Leeds Arts University (LAU). The discussion includes exploring how Joys working methods reflect in some ways the rich art education heritage from which her work is rooted.
Book your place, here.
Close Currency. Paul Bennett-Todd
Tuesday 27 November, 6:30-7:30pm
Everyone is invited to join photographer Paul Bennett-Todd, in his exploration of themes and questions that emerge for this ongoing collection of ‘all’ the banknotes in the world. A part of Paul’s collection ‘Close Currency’ are photographed for Seeding Art Currency.
Transience and ‘art as a living currency’ are just some of the themes that these prints evoke. The prints depict the detail of a sample of notes in his collection, each one has a story to tell. The full versions of the notes would of course reveal the country of origin, depicting national identities through icons, symbols and historical events. Patterns of indigenous seeds, flora and fauna are also found in the designs, highlighted through magnification.
This debut showing of Paul’s collection, is accompanied by a provocation, to guess which country each of the notes depicted in Close Currency originate. Winners need to guess at least four correctly (out of the six exhibited) in order to receive a signed print from Paul.
Answers are to be sent directly to Paul by email: paul.bennett-todd@leeds-art.ac.uk. On the night Paul will reveal the country of origin for each photograph that form Close Currency.
Book your place, here.
VVM (Venice Vending Machine), Marina Moreno, “How Do You Value Art?”
Thursday 29 and Friday 30 November, 5:30-7:30pm
Artist Marina Moreno will ask this question whilst inviting you to play with The Venice Vending Machine (VVM). By being part of a dialogue based around the arts, you will be able to acquire one of the artworks created by VVM artists selected at random by the mechanism of the surprising machine known as Teddy Giallo.
You will be given a token in exchange of a monetary and symbolic offer you will propose, in order to get your own art work from the machine. Unlike other art vending machines the VVM is not a sale or display mechanism for art but a participatory, travelling, discursive experience.
Book your place, here.