Artist Emma Hart has been working with Eastside Projects as the first EOP Incidental Artist with an open brief to develop a project for or with EOP. Following an R&D phase she came up with a plan …
I want to fall back in love with experiencing art. Lately I have become jaded and anxious when looking at art. Going to an exhibition, encountering an artwork and feeling out all the decisions the artist has made, used to be (relatively) fun. Now the thought of going to a show is exhausting. I’ve got exhibition fatigue and I wonder if this lack of curiosity is affecting what or how I make?
I propose a series of gallery visits with EOP Members, as a form of relationship therapy between the group and art. Together we can question, unpick, experience exhibitions and explore public artworks. We can work out how we feel about the art presented and what we want from it.
I am imagining that we will all be new to the artwork we visit, and the looking process will be one of discovery. It is not expected that any of the group (including me) will have done prior research on the art or artist.
We will be shooting from the hip and we will all need to speak up, describe, and question. We need to hear from everyone their response to the work including hunches, gut feelings and vague thoughts. My hope is that through verbally describing and sharing our encounter together, we can find out if we can collectively fall in love with art again.
We visited When Forms Come Alive at the Hayward Gallery and Permindar Kaur: Nothing is Fixed
at John Hansard Gallery earlier in the year and are now calling out for EOP members to join us on two trips this autumn.
AUTUMN VISITS
- Thursday 7 November, 1pm–3pm – Turner Prize 2024, Tate Britain.
- Friday 13 December, 12 midday–2pm – Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker, Nottingham Contemporary
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
- We are looking for up to 8 EOP members to join us on each trip.
- We can offer a travel bursary of up to £50 for each visit, and will pay for entry to the Turner Prize show (you will need to provide receipts and an invoice to claim the travel bursary).
- Please only apply if you can definitely attend. Whilst we understand that illness or family emergencies can cause late cancellations we had several people just drop out at the last minute on previous trips, too late for other people to take their place. Please remember this is a wasted opportunity for someone else.
Complete THIS SIMPLE FORM to express your interest in joining and submit by Monday 7 October
We aim to confirm if you have a space by 11 October