uploadingandupdating

Great to see the frames from the Jubilant! Project displayed at the Primadonna festival over the weekend. While there I was taken with Jordan Stephens’s left of field call for men to address their own pain as a way of supporting women. Looking forward to reading Unwell women by Elinor Cleghorn, especially the cultural politics around access and understanding. I have updated my website to include two projects – Jubilant! and the bookartbookshop show https://lesbicknell.wixsite.com/work/now  onto screens - Too Old for Fairy Tales – sweet coming of age story with a twist story. Purple Hearts – sweet love story with a twist. Honor Society – sweet high school story with a twist. Persuasion - sweet historical drama with a twist - the screen lights up when Richard E Grant is on it, if only he was there more

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the book created for the Jubilant! Project – full film of all pages. tattoos have become an interesting conduit through my family – these are my dad’s tattoos – meanwhile onto screens – the Gray Man – gloriously excessive nonsense. The Old Man – slightly wooden espionage intrigue

booksforjubilant!

The books for the jubilant! project arrived - l have to say that they look great, the pages flow and the students work is something special, so proud of them. The book has captured the project wonderfully – the students loved them too. After a busy morning, first at the food museum  to look at the garden exhibition there, then onto Red Stables where the frames are now in the space waiting for the celebration and sharing at the weekend. Onto screens - STILL – A Gecko Film is truly beautiful – my eyes filled as the woman dances with her hands after playing with a blanket and the balloon sequence is gloriously mad – most excellent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJTL5Lcag1U&t=763s&ab_channel=Gecko

 

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The work with Jubilant! is going well – we had another good session at Stowuplands High School before we hang the work at Red Gables next week. It was full of great moments and conversations. I’ve worked at Stowupland High School over the past month mainly outside with Colin Ley from Red Gables. We have been working together with pupils to envisage the possibilities of a area adjacent to the school. The space is 65m x 57m with a barrow shape created with spoil from the building of tennis courts approximately 2m in height that runs East West to the North of the space. It has a range of vegetation covering the space - grasses, sedges, and plants. We set out to investigate and question the space to help us understand and map it. Focusing on the senses we experienced what the space felt, sounded, and smelt like as well as looking closely. The investigation included practical concerns including testing soil ph. levels, developing alternative measurements of the space itself and counting how many blades of grass are growing in the space. The idea was that by mapping what is there we could determine what could be. Some of the process is included in a small booklet which acts as a manual for future development of the space. We made a set of frames, inspired by the work of the Boyle Family, who have been making their Earth Pieces since 1976. The system they created to establish their working practice uses a framing device to enable them to determine what and how to view the world. The frame acts as a form of contract with the viewer. It offers a moment of reflection, to stop and breath, something we all need at this moment in time. The viewer is gifted the time to contemplate the world we live in; the frame organizes our thinking and supports our viewing. We know the world exists beyond the frame, but in a moment of stillness we can gather our thoughts, refreshed to go back into the world we came from. I’m interested in developing work that leaves space for the viewer, to enable them to stop and reflect. Framing the changing landscape means that every individual interaction with the work is unique, the space itself becomes the work.  The New Designers exhibition trade show was hung on Monday, the NUA Textile Design course stand looked good, I get to go on Saturday, spend time on the stand and take the work down. Meanwhile onto screens, His House – demonstrates the shocking lack of care in the immigration system. Love & Gelato – fluffy feel good. Spiderhead – twisted and spiteful. The Man from Toronto – has its moments. Deep into the unnerving Midwich Cuckoos series – disturbingly freaky.

morebreathingin

I think the assembly at Stowuplands school was a success – introducing the students to a range of ideas, the work of artists and the very idea of art as a career – we shall see who wants to be part of the project. https://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/assembly-revisedpptx A Day of breathing in - first up Gagosian - with Hirst playing with dead animals and then having fun with dioramas but maybe a little lost. The Science Museum - to check out mathematic models but the space has been sanitized and they have been sadly removed in favour of a cafe! The Serpentine gallery - has a VR experience by Dominique Gonzalez -Foerster and Aliens which was ok. Larry Bell at Hauser and Wirth had a sense of futuristic set design about it but the work was lost as the details were missed – cutting glass on angles is obviously a challenge. Frith Street gallery has some interesting yet slightly disturbing ceramic and glass heads by Thomas Schutte. Jeff Wall's hauntingly disturbing photos are at White Cube, Mason's Yard. The small works by Ettore Spalletti at Marian Goodman were just so beautiful, the book structures giving up nothing but timelessness. I loved the powder blue installation that was created by him at their old space, especially the inclusion of the white pencil. Somerset House had a community project and that along with the Radio Ballads, the work in The North space of The Serpentine Gallery were instructive, providing a way to move forward with a project I'm working on - not quite a solution more of a direction. Bond Street was as ever a space of otherness – the Louis Vuitton shop had an amazing window display – the kinetic sculptures by William Darrell were truly amazing. Onto screens - Chaos Walking has an interesting premise the visualisation of which is cleverly impressive. Welcome to Eden takes a while to get to its point.  

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Started two new projects. 1 - Working with Jubilant! on a project for Milton Meadow with Stowupland High School and Red Gables to re-imagine a space within the school grounds. It’s exciting to be in on something from the beginning, speaking at an assembly to lay the groundwork and determine who will be involved is going to be a blast. 2 - Receptor pharmacology at Kings, creating teaching models that explore the phenomena is going to be a ride. Problem solving and lateral thinking using material understanding. It’s what we do. My voice is to be in the British Library sound archive - in the dim and distant past I worked on an MA at Camberwell College of the Arts called Book Art. Early in the course structure we initiated a symposium, that was subsequently adopted into the MA pathway - anyway an iteration of this was apparently recorded and now resides in their archives, along with a presentation I gave. So, if you ever get the inclination to hear over 14 hours of voices from another time, talking on a course that no longer exists you know where to go! onto screens - Windfall - a dark and twisted film played out by fractured characters. Time to Hunt - gangster light revenge tale. A woefully boring experience but with good acting, played for laughs - on how did that happen? Operation Mincemeat – odd stiff upper lip romp. Uncharted – 'twisty-turney' romp. Ozark season 4 complete – just so dark