Rhôd in the Tannery:

The Tannery was open –
7.30pm Fri 09/03/12
11am-1pm Sat 10/03/12 with Pecha Kucha in the Tabernacle 2pm-4pm
11am – 3pm Sun 11/03/12
Location – http://g.co/maps/bj284

In 2012 the Rhôd Artists Group developed a collaborative work and research project at The Tannery, Machynlleth from Monday 13th February to Sunday 11th March.
Mike Murray, Dave Shepherd, Jason Pinder, Penny Jones, Jacob Whittaker, Mari Beynon Owen, Samuel William Aldridge, Elizabeth Waterhouse, Kathryn Campbell Dodd and Roger Lougher.
The title of the exhibition was an ‘exquisite corpse’; the sum of each artist’s own title for the show they would ideally have liked to curate within The Tannery if curation was not shared with 9 other people.
The process was mostly undertaken behind the closed doors of the gallery where it offered the artists an opportunity to work in a site-specific way, interact with each others work and allow the project to change and develop in situ.
The groups’ postings here as the show progresses and the artists curate the show and discuss their particular interpretations of the processes.

The exhibition opened with a closing event on the Friday 9th March when members of the public were invited to the gallery to see the current position of the work. This was followed by a walk and talk around the show on Saturday 10th March in the morning and in the afternoon a discussion with the artists using video projections.
There was a skype event on February 29th when the group discussed the show with each other and any who wished to join them.

This is an edit of the webcast Skype conference from the Rhod group.

All of the actual meeting has been edited out leaving the conversations about connecting.

The full version is available here bambuser.com/v/2411810

The MOMA and the Tannery… Opens and closes…

The opening/closing of the Tannery show was a mix.  A great experience full of highs and lows but nevertheless worthwhile – I feel that we all benifitted from working in this somewhat haphazard way.

in the fake tannin’ salon (aka in a building that will become a gallery)

Well I missed it …the day of reckoning at the Tannery yesterday (Sunday).  Clarity given to what seemingly could have been questioned very sceptically by our visitors.

What have we finished?  nothing? Does it matter if we haven’t …no! Why?  Because it’s all about getting there (aka the process)

kickstart

Today, when we visited the Tanerdy for the last time before the closing, I felt that the exquisite corpse came alive. The work, a mixture of site specific responses and individual concepts developed within the group, enlivens the space. It feels as if it is eagerly awaiting the new life which the Rhag intervention is kick-starting

Trying to Connect

come on

We throw everything away, and find plenty from the bin.

Its hard because we are all having so many ideas

10x10x10x10x10x10x10x10x10x10

They’ll be threads but I don’t know  

how we will find them together

 

…

 

I think that in trying so hard to work as a group, we have neglected any responsibilty we may have to the public who will view the outcome of this project. This is no bad thing.But are we, in trying to salvage componenets that are ‘suitable’ for viewing, just trying to ram a square peg into a round hole?

It’s hard to get excited without being on site. I’m looking forward to getting there on Sunday.

…. GETTING DOWN AND DIRTY (incidents with Walt’s video)

A number of edited incidents from existing images that may influence my contribution to our joint curating of the show on Sunday 4th March.

As well as recording and highlighting some of the objects/incidents and how they come together there is a strong abstract element that relates to composition. placement and colour  …….. if not the circle within the rectangle ……………

Given the fact that we used the words ‘clutter ‘ – ‘chaos’ – ‘debris’ and such like to describe the appearance of what is in the gallery at the moment I am extremely interested in the method we employ to construct the show …..  and how we ‘compensate’ for outsiders who did not actually experience the unfolding of our ‘exquisite corpse’

As we do clear the gallery I would like to see Penny’s red exits and entrances left to last ….. I like the way they engage directly with the ‘architecture’ of the space and how, when they appear within the structure of many of our photographs, they operate as significant spatial indicators. ( I am eternally a constructivist )

I will probably change some of these images – add or remove some – as I ponder over my contribution to the curatorial process.

I see what we are about to do on Sunday as a reductive editing process ………..  and as we try things out we should continue to document the process …………

David Shepherd 1/3/2012

Is zed dead?

Charlie Chaplin final speech in The Great Dictator

Wanting to do some research I unearthed ‘The Book of Skin’ [Connor, Steven; 2004; Reaktion Books Ltd; pub. Great Britain]. I’d started reading this about five years ago, but didn’t have enough reasons for carrying on and ended up putting it aside. The book suddenly makes sense now and so I’ve nearly finished it. The book is largely about the living skin. It touches on so many of the ideas that each of us is dealing with in the Tannery: Ideas of wrapping and enfolding, of psychosis and personal boundaries; of how internal processes become imprinted at the periphery, how they surface in the skin. The author, Steven Connor, says in describing the changes in our historic picturing of the skin that it was ‘First a screen, then a membrane and finally, this book will assume, what Michel Serres calls a milieu: the skin becomes a place of mingling, a mingling of places.’ [p. 26]

I want to suggest that the rooms we are working in at the Tannery are an in-folding of the skin; perhaps a mouth that can speak, perhaps a place associated with labour and toil like a sweaty armpit or possibly we are inviting you into an even more intimate space. We are clothing ourselves in the Tannery and the ghosts of the beasts that have been skinned to make shoes and clothes and books etc. and so far rather than decorating this particular skin we are ghost writing onto the shared skin of the internet.

Wearing it…

‘The Coat’ has been hanging out in the Tannery now for a few weeks. During that time it’s visited Capel y Graig in Furnace with Jacob for a day out, it left a couple of buttons there with Avi Allen which have been on their own little journey too. It’s been busy absorbing thoughts and ideas…Dave found an inside-out approach to wearing it and immediately discovered a deep seated fashionista within.

I’ve been similarly effected. I’ve been trying to keep my thoughts and ideas open and fluid. I’ve been watching other people approaching the Tannery project and letting myself be influenced by their process and approach. It’s fascinating and scary I’ve found. Last Friday I spent a fantastic day with Roger, Mike and Dave playing art games in the space – setting rules and then working within them to alter and influence the objects in the gallery space. What a simple but rare thing to do. To spend the day with a handful of other artists and play – haven’t really done anything similar since I did my foundation a zillion years ago.

I’ve also been battling with myself…what’s acceptable? Is it ok to fail? Do I mind what other people think of me? How does this look from the outside? Do I trust these other artists? Is this worth investing in? WHY AM I DOING THIS? I’ve had a couple of days when I felt very insecure and negative about it…BUT I think I’m coming to understand a few really quite profound things about myself and my approach to making art. I have a few exciting ideas about what might happen in my own practice as a result.

On Sunday we meet all together and begin to finish this process at the Tannery. It will be such a short day…just a few hours with us all together, I’m fascinated and apprehensive and excited to see what we do.