A contemporary art project in everydaylocations around Exeter
city centre
17 APRIL – 15 MAY 2004
TARIQ ALVIOLADÉLÉ AJIBOYÉ BAMGBOYÉCAROLINE BERGVALL ANSUMAN
BISWAS JYLL BRADLEY LISA CHEUNG MICHAEL CURRAN JEM FINERGUILLERMO
GÓMEZ-PEÑAJENNY MELLINGS MISHA MYERS ROSALIND NASHASHIBI GRAYSON
PERRYQUACK-PROJECT WRIGHTS & SITES + WHEN IN ROME II
THE MIDDLE ENGLAND
SERIESwww.spacex.co.ukwww.relational.org.uk
A Spacex / Relational project presented, as part ofthe Middle
England Series, in association with
Arts Council England’s decibel initiative, “raisingthe voice of
culturally diverse arts in Britain”.
45 Preston Street, Exeter EX1 1DF, UK www.relational.org.ukTel:
+44 (0)1392 [email protected]
Spacex is a registered charity no. 1054163, supported byArts
Council England, Exeter City Council and Devon County Council
17 APRIL – 15 MAY
12, 20 & 22 PARIS STREETCaroline Bergvall, AnsumanBiswas,
Jyll Bradley, Lisa Cheung, GuillermoGómez-Peña, Jenny
Mellings,Misha Myers, RosalindNashashibi, Quack-Project
THE BLUE BOY GIFT SHOPGrayson Perry
EAST TO WESTAnsuman Biswas & Jem Finer
HABITATWhen in Rome II Daniel Baker, Suki Chan,Nooshin Farhid,
AmandaFrancis, Raimi Gbadamosi,Takafumi Homma, Ronee Hui,Silia
KaTung, Margareta Kern,Maria Meade, Agnes Poitevin-Navarre, Harold
Offeh, PaulO’Kane, Yewande Okuleye,Raymond Yap
HOMELAND / SPACEX STAFFare available at 12, 20 and 22Paris
Street, and at the gallery todiscuss the work at all timesduring
the project
17 APRIL – 29 MAY
ROYAL ALBERTMEMORIAL MUSEUMIntrospectOladélé Ajiboyé
Bamgboyé
17 APRIL – 12 JUNE
SPACEX GALLERYi can c my way home Tariq Alvi and Michael
Curranwith Jeremy Akerman, GailBurton, Michele Dendy, AnaFonseca,
Marc Hulson, SerenaKorda, Geoffrey Preston, AlexSchady, Show &
Tell and others
Please see map inside for details of locations
OPENING TIMESAll sites are openTuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm
ADMISSION FREE
ACCESS Spacex is fullyaccessible for visitors usingwheelchairs,
prams and buggies.Please telephone other locationsfor information
about access
Bus 0870 6082608Train 08457 484950
Homeland is a Spacex/Relational project, curated by Tom Trevor
andZoë Shearman. Assistant curator, Raimi Gbadamosi.
Projects out of Spacex co-ordinated by Relational.
Technical/SiteManager, Caroline Mawdsley. Spacex co-ordinators,
Hannah Reeves(education & outreach), Lara West (finance) and
Hannah Wingrave(exhibitions & marketing).
Supported by Arts Council England, as part of the decibel
initiative, andthe Henry Moore Foundation. Sponsored by Land
Securities PLC inpartnership with Arts & Business South
West.
Organised in partnership with Exeter City Council, the Royal
AlbertMemorial Museum & Art Gallery, Habitat UK Ltd, East to
West, TheBlue Boy Gift Shop, Picture This, South West Screen,
Wrights andSights, tEXt festival 04, the Institute of Digital Art
& Technology ,Dartington College of Arts and the University of
Plymouth.
Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé’s Unmasking 3 is a FACT commission,
co-produced with John Moores University and the Institute of
Digital Art &Technology, funded by the Millennium Festival Fund
and developed inpartnership with National Museums & Galleries
on Merseyside.
Caroline Bergvall’s Your Number’s Up is supported by
CreativeConnections Fund, DCA. Ansuman Biswas’ Season is
commissioned byPicture This, Dartington Arts and The South West
Film and TelevisionArchive, and funded by South West Screen.
Ansuman Biswas and JemFiner’s Zero Genie is commissioned by The
Arts Catalyst, and funded byLondon Arts Board. Michael Curran’s i
can c my way home iscommissioned by Spacex, Picture This and South
West Screen, andfunded by Arts Council England’s National Touring
Programme andSouth West Screen. Misha Myers’ Lonesome Long Gone is
supported bytEXt festival 04. The Quack-Project is produced by
Signwave UK,Middlesex University and Kahve-Society, and Cockney and
CornishDuck’s Dialect(ic) co-produced by the Institute of Digital
Art &Technology and Performance Research Journal.
With thanks to Emma Blackwell, Cabinet Gallery, Neville
Chambers,David England, Jake Ferguson, John Harvey, Yvonne Hayes,
KariHensley, Stephen Hodge, Ceri Johnson, Polly Macpherson,
NolaMariano, Tim Miles, Zoe Li, Tom Pales, David Paterson,
SimonPersighetti, Janet Phare, Mike Phillips, Picture This,
Kimberley Rainford,Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery,
Mariam Sharp, MikeStrover, Josie Sutcliffe, Emma Underhill,
Victoria Miro Gallery, MarkWallace, Sam Wilkinson, and all the
interpreters and technicians.
THE GIFTSaturday 17 April,11am
The displaced,shrapnel-scarred BlueBoy stands alone. Tothis
orphan landmarkfor shoppers, wecome bearing carrierbags of gifts,
thecolour of the sky.
SUBURBAN HOMESICK BLUESSaturday 24 April, 11am Caught between
two versions of Middle England,Exeter and Winchester, a blue maid
dreams of a blueboy and vice versa. Version two of this walk will
takeplace in Winchester, on 28 April.
TOWN PLANNING CONSULTANT TO THECORPORATIONTuesday 4 May, 1.36 -
2.50am An audio walk on the anniversary of Exeter’s Blitz,inspired
by a found, personal account of the post-warrebuild by an unknown
Exeter resident. Meet promptlyat 1.30am and bring a personal CD
player.
HAT AND BOOKSaturday 8 May, 11am
Law courts on a volcano, concrete tunnels throughabstract
Princesshay: Middle Exeter’s psychogeographyand beyond... Come
dressed in blue and with plentyof time.
YOU ARE HERESaturday, 15 May, 12 noonBlack Box, Exeter
Phoenix
A free presentation about the company’s publication,An Exeter
Mis-Guide (www.mis-guide.com) thatencourages the experience of
getting “lost and lovingit”. Followed by an optional, short walk to
pay homageto the Blue Boy. Presented as part of tEXt festival
04.
Wrights & Sites are Stephen Hodge, SimonPersighetti, Phil
Smith and Cathy Turner.
Limited places available Please book in advance by
contactingHannah Reeves 01392 431786 /[email protected] All walks
are free andstart at the Blue Boy statue in Princesshay,except You
Are Here.
Wrights & Sites Blue Boy Walks
Misha Myers
YODEL RODEOSaturday 17 April, High Noon to High Tea Royal Albert
Memor ial Museum & Art Gallery,Local History galleries, and
city centre streets
Myers’ persona, Buffalo Sue, reframes the old Romanwalls of
Exeter into a rodeo corral. City dignitaries
and citizens once walked the walls annually to nameand shame any
transgressor of the security andprestige they upheld. Tracing their
steps and cheerswith renegade rodeo pageantry, the cowgirl roundsup
the herds of the city with her Texas lullabies andline dance
interludes performed by Exeter’sMontgomery Mavericks. You can
follow along bothremotely over a 3-D map of the old city at
theMuseum, or in the city centre streets.
LONESOME LONG GONESaturday 15 May, High Noon to High Tea Royal
Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery,Natural History
galleriesMyers presents Buffalo Sue alongside the Museum’sexhibit
of a North American Bison. Hercontemporary and global Wild West
show follows atrail stretching infinitely ahead and out of sight,
pastmotorway exits to shopping malls, desert
battlefields,inter-galactic space stations and
multinationalcorporate frontiers.
PERFORMANCES WHAT IS MIDDLE ENGLAND?Sarat Maharaj, art historian
and co-curator of Documenta XIKodwo Eshun, writer and
researcherSusan Pui San Lok, artist and writerDiscussion chaired by
Raimi Gbadamosi, artist andcurator
INVESTIGATING HISTORIES
Artists presentations of current archive-based projectsOladélé
Ajiboyé Bamgboyé, Ansuman Biswas and Erika Tan
MIGRATIONS
A programme of artists films, including work by MarineHugonnier,
Uyen Luu, Rosalind Nashashibi and Alia Syed,followed by a
discussion with participating artists
PARADISE OMEROS the latest film by Isaac Julien
RE-BOP SESSION a live multi-media performance by Soul JazzSound
System and Jonnie Williams
SYMPOSIUM IN AND OUT OFMIDDLE ENGLANDFriday 30 April - Saturday
1 May Exeter Phoenix, Bradninch Place,Gandy StreetA two-day
symposium which aims toprovide a critical platform for
current‘cultural diversity’ debates and to examinerelated
socially-engaged concerns withincontemporary visual arts. Presented
bydecibel Arts Council South West andorganised in partnership with
Spacex andPicture This.
Delegate fee £20 including tickets forall events. To book
contact the decibelAdministrator, Arts Council EnglandSouth West
01392 229230 / [email protected]
WORKSHOPSEX4A series of text and print-making workshops for
peo-ple who live, work or study in the postal code areaEX4. These
free Spacex workshops are held in part-nership with Exeter CVS.
THREADSSpacex outreach project with Exeter Islamic
Centre.Participants will look at local and diverse textile
tra-ditions, exploring links with cultural identity. Anexhibition
of work produced will take place in theAutumn. To take part in EX4
or to attend the Threadsproject launch at Exeter Islamic Centre on
Tuesday11 May, contact Hannah Reeves on 01392 431786.
GUIDED TOURS HOMELANDFriday 30 April 10.30amStarting at Exeter
Phoenix, Bradninch Place,Gandy StreetA guided tour of Homeland, led
by the projectcurators, Tom Trevor and Zoë Shearman.
WHEN IN ROME II Saturday 8 May 11am Habitat, 21-22 Queen
Street
Raimi Gbadamosi, co-curator and artist, leads a tourof the
exhibition.
Homeland is a month-long project presentingartists’ work in
everyday locations around thecentre of Exeter. Organised by Spacex
andRelational Projects, this series of contemporary artexhibitions,
interventions, performances andevents essentially asks the question
“What isMiddle England?” The project is sited at SpacexGallery, the
Royal Albert Memorial Museum & ArtGallery, Habitat, the Blue
Boy Gift Shop and Eastto West in Princesshay, and a number of
emptyshops in Paris Street, vacant prior to re-development by Land
Securities.
Increasingly politicians, advertising and the mediarefer to
‘Middle England’ as if it were an acceptedeveryday definition, and
yet its underlying criteriaremain unclear. The question of who is
able toconsider themselves a part of Middle England, forexample, is
ambiguous. One aim of the project isto examine the construction of
a culturalhegemony around this peculiarly English, class-bound
model of community, with its strong senseof belonging and
ownership, and thus itsequivalent sense of exclusivity and
resistance tochange.
Homeland includes artists commissioned toeither make new works
or show existing piecesin everyday contexts for the first time. The
projectis presented in association with Arts CouncilEngland’s
decibel initiative, “raising the voiceof culturally diverse arts in
Britain”.
Front: Grayson Perry, Storm
Brew
ing, 2002,courtesy of the artist / Victoria M
iro Gallery, London
Buffalo Sue (still), 2003
Cour tesy D
ave Paterson
ROYAL ALBERTMEMORIAL MUSEUM& ART GALLERY
Queen Street, tel. 01392 665858www.exeter.gov.uk/museums World
Cultures galleries(continues until 29 May 2004)
INTROSPECT
Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé
Introspect (2003) contrasts Western perceptionsof Africa with
images of the day-to-dayexperience of living in Nigeria. As part of
hisExeter-based project, Bamgboyé has re-editedarchive film footage
donated by local residents,who have lived both in Devonand Nigeria.
He alsopresents Unmasking3, a new digitalcommission,alongside
theWorldCulturesdisplay ofa Beninhead.
LOCATION
Caroline Bergvall
Your Number's Up Do you have a favouritenumber? Do you avoid
travelling on certaindates? What does zero mean? In more waysthan
1, numbers shape the ways we relate tothe world. Poet and
site-artist Bergvall willwork for 3 days (13 - 15 May) in the
oldbetting shop, with sound duo Liminal, torecord your answers to
questionnaires,numerical games and symbolic patterns.These
soundings will be incorporated into anocturnal public event in
Exeter this Autumn.
Ansuman Biswas
Season, a new four-screen video installation,is part of a series
of works exploring themultiple links between Bengal and Devon,and
between past and future, includingfootage from the South West Film
andTelevision Archive and autobiographicalmaterial from India.
Jyll Bradley www.fragrant.org.uk
Fragrant, Exeter is a site-specific floralinstallation made in
collaboration with JanetPhare, a flower arranger from
ExeterCathedral. Fragrant, Exeter draws upon thetraditions of
English church flower arranging,a popular ‘art of the everyday’,
but createdwithin the confines of a city centre shop.
Theinstallation combines local Devon foliagewith ‘exotic’ orchids
and anthuriums, tocreate a stunning hybrid arrangement.
Lisa Cheung
The Great Wall of china is a participatoryproject that attempts
to record the faces ofMiddle England. A broad range of
Exetercitizens, including passers-by, are invited tohave their
photograph taken for thecollection in the Portrait Studio (open
17April – 1 May). These portraits will then betransferred onto a
set of commemorativeplates that celebrate the people that make
upExeter’s changing and vibrant society. Theplates will eventually
make up The GreatWall of china, to be exhibited in the Autumn.
Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Ethno-Techno: Los Video Graffitis (2004)consists of
approximately 30 ‘video graffitis’,or short performance video
segments, bycelebrated Latino-American artist Gómez-Peña and the
performance group La PochaNostra. They range in length from
thirtyseconds to three minutes. This body of workdeals with
critical contemporary issues suchas globalization, immigration, the
politics oflanguage, censorship, race relations, thecommodification
of ethnicity, Latinos in themedia, and the digital divide.
Jenny Mellings
A new animated film, resulting fromMellings’ residency at Spacex
as part ofwhich she worked with local groups focusingon everyday
life in Exeter. “The subject is theHigh Street, which resembles a
fickle stream- dry river bed at the dead of night or flashflood on
a Saturday morning.”
Misha Myers (see Performances)
Buffalo Sue’s Wild West is an installation thatincorporates
ephemera and videodocumentation of Myers performance YodelRodeo,
and the video Pain Town, whichfollows the cowgirl’s journey to the
wildWest Country seaside town of Paignton, withits amusement
arcades and ‘hill-billy’shooting gallery on the pier, made with
videomaker Gillian Wylde.
Rosalind Nashashibi
Beck’s Futures-winner, Nashashibi presentsThe States of Things
(2000), a 16mm blackand white film transferred to DVD, in whicha
Salvation Army jumble sale at Maryhill inGlasgow is set to the
sound track of an oldEgyptian love song by Um Kolthoum, In HaliFi
Hawaha Agab.
The Quack-Project
An interactive CD-ROM which asks thequestion: “Do ducks quack in
the same wayall over the world?” featuring the voices ofnursery
children from over 20 Londonschools, making animal noises in a
widerange of languages that reflect the capital’scultural
diversity. These sounds mingle witha new work, Cockney and Cornish
Duck’sDialect(ic), featuring conversation betweenCockney and
Cornish ducks.
12, 20 & 22 PARIS STREET
THE BLUE BOYGIFT SHOP
22-24 Princesshaytel. 01392 258013www.blueboygifts.co.uk
Grayson Perry
Turner Prize-winner, Perry presentsa pot entitled Storm
Brewing(2002), in the context of the BlueBoy Gift Shop, a
specialist china andglass retailer. Perry’s work combinesthe
traditions of fine and decorative artswith compelling personal and
socialthemes, in an uncompromising investigation of thecultural
stereotypes which lie at the heart of Middle England.
EAST TO WEST34 Princesshay, tel. 01392 413555
Ansuman Biswas &Jem FinerIn the film Zero Genie (2001),
presentedin the window of East to West (which sellshand crafted
Indonesian furniture andgifts), Biswas and Finer fly in zero
gravityconditions, dressed as genies, at the UriGagarin Cosmonaut’s
Training Facility inStar City, Moscow. They dance, levitate,and
reveal, for the very first time in theWest, the mythical Flying
Carpet.
HABITAT
21-22 Queen Street, tel. 01392254000 www.habitat.net
WHEN IN ROME II
Daniel Baker, Suki Chan,Nooshin Farhid, AmandaFrancis, Raimi
Gbadamosi,Takafumi Homma, RoneeHui, Paul Jones, Silia KaTung,
Margareta Kern, MariaMeade, Agnes Poitevin-Navarre, Harold Offeh,
PaulO’Kane, Yewande Okuleye, Raymond YapWhen in Rome is an ongoing
project, curated by Raimi Gbadamosi andAmanda Francis, which aims
to function as a critical platform for ‘culturallydiverse’ artists
to consider their practice and profession. When in Rome IIis
presented as part of the Homeland project, showing new works in
thecontext of Habitat, Exeter, addressing issues of modernism and
thesupposed universality of form. There is also a project
book,published to accompany the exhibition with new pageworks by
each of the artists showing at Habitat.
SPACEX GALLERY
45 Preston Street, tel. 01392 431786(continues until 12 June
2004)
i can c my way home
Tariq Alvi and Michael Curran with Jeremy Akerman, Gail Burton,
Michele Dendy, Ana Fonseca,Marc Hulson, Serena Korda, Geoffrey
Preston, Alex Schady, Show & Tell and othersTariq Alvi creates
open-ended accumulations and collages of images, cut-out from
magazines orbrochures, as a kind of visual free association. The
juxtapositions are often provocative, sometimesusing sexual
imagery, in a celebration of fantasy and chaos. Working in
collaboration, Alvi andCurran present an installation that explores
the underbelly of Middle England, with guestcontributions by
artists and friends.
Michael Curran also presents a new film, i can c my way home, as
a two screen video installationthat contrasts Killerton House, a
thriving National Trust property near Exeter, and the
neighbouringPoltimore House, a ruin fast falling into a state of
utter dilapidation. Each space defines and defiesthe other – decay
and dereliction counter-pointing order and upkeep.
Introspect (still), 2003G
ambit, 2004, R
aimi G
badamosi
Michael C
urran, 2004
Z ero Genie (still), 200 1
Season (still), 2004Jacket, 2004
Beatriz, an expert orchid grow
erin C
olombia, photo Jyll B
radley2004
Tea Set, 2002El Z orro, G
uillermo G
ómez-P eña
at T ate Modern,
photo Manuel Vason, 2003
Filmstill, 2004
Buffalo Sue (still), 2003
The States of Things(still), 2000
The Quack Project, 2003
If you would like to take part in Your Number’s Up or the
GreatWall of china please contact Hannah Reeves on 01392 431786
Tariq Alvi, Parasites, 2000, courtesy M
useum B
oijmans, R
otterdam
Michael C
urran, i can c my w
ay home (still), 2004
