Download Press release

Hastings Arts Forum
Press Release
36 Marina, St Leonards-on-Sea, TN38 OBU
Telephone 01424 201636
Exhibition title: Conflicts in Time
Seeing ‘Time’
‘Time’ Explored
Dates: 19 – 29 March
Where is ‘Time’?
Six months ago eleven artist members of the Hastings Arts Forum were invited to make works which show
how they think about and experience time. Over two weeks in March at the Forum’s galleries we will be
confronted by some surprising results. Dr Laura Bear from the Anthropology Department of the London
School of Economics has been leading a three year long series of seminars where anthropologists from the
UK and USA have been considering issues of global time. Her invitation was for the artists to bring their
different forms of expression, which reach beyond the medium of words, to illuminate the Conflicts in Time
which the anthropologists have been discussing. In this exhibition visitors will be seeing time, and many of
the puzzles and conflicts that it generates in our lives, through the visually dramatic representations created
by these artists.
To mention a few there will be:
o
A large, mixed media assemblage of salvaged suitcases containing found objects, representing what
might have been their valued contents, and through which the artist reflects on the brevity of our time
here and the endurance of our links with our personal histories and cultures. A similar focus on
triggering memories and emotions of times past is created in her book assemblages where the left
hand pages are permanently sealed and the double page spread at which it is open houses evocative
artifacts displayed in niches cut into the pages of the book. (Artist - Lynne Bingham)
o
On 19 March one of Sid Beynon’s works ‘Nothing is written in stone’ will be recreated on the beach in
front of the galleries by a team of HAF members. As the tide goes out during the afternoon they will
arrange the text in contrasting coloured stones in the shingle and as high tide approaches in the
evening it will be washed away. Sid Beynon died last Summer but his powerful ideas live on in this
way.
o
An installation incorporating the many kinds of time tables and charts that govern our lives displayed
with plants produced from seeds set to germinate in pots five weeks earlier in accordance with the
most beneficial moment in the current lunar cycle. ( Artist – Sue Barnes)
o
A wall of almost abstract paintings of Sussex woodland seen from the artist’s studio window, one
produced each day, stimulated by an interest in I Ching and The Book of Changes and demonstrating
the infinite potential for change and the transitory nature of the world around us. (Artist - John
Hacker)
o
Ephemeral and decaying objects such as discarded bus tickets, newspaper cuttings or shopping lists
that the artist has transformed into objects of contemplation by placing them in the permanent space
of a gallery. (Rosie O’Driscoll)
Continued ...
2
o
A large series of paintings showing elaborate linear designs in which the artist believes we will search
for order but where he has placed none. He wants us to learn to free ourselves from our normal
habits and recognise that we should contemplate the possibilities of non linear time, premonition and
glimpsing the future. (Artist - John Plummer)
o
Similarly challenging to our frequently rigid understanding of time is the real time computer installation
which shows a map of the world with two sets of changing digital numerals which diverge increasingly
as we watch. The computer is sending the time from here and now in Hastings to a computer in
Boston and as these ‘times’ increasingly diverge we are forced to understand that the time we are
living in is in a different realm and is a slower form of time from that inhabited by ‘information’ on the
internet. (Artist - Max Irwin)
This exhibition is a joint project between Hastings Arts Forum and the Anthropology Department of the
London School of Economics with funding from the Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC).
At the start of this exhibition on 19 March the anthropologists will meet with the HAF artists to explore how
they have rendered the issues in visual media. On Saturday 26 March there will be a Family Day with
‘Conflicts in Time’ workshops for children in the morning and a puppet show in the afternoon.
ARTISTS
Sue Barnes
Sid Beynon
Rose Biela
Lynne Bingham
John Hacker
Andy Moran
Mary Morris
Rosie O’Driscoll
John Plummer
EXHIBITING MEDIA
Graphic work and living plants
Public art installation and photographs
Assemblages of made objects and photographs
Mixed media sculpture
Watercolours with pencil
Screened video presentation
Mixed media paintings
Found objects and paint
Acrylic on canvas paintings
Annie Rae
Watercolours with gouache and pencil and fine art prints
OTHER PARTICIPANTS
Laura Bear
Four ethnographic films, Hooghly Soundings, from recent fieldwork in Kolkata, India
Mary Evans
Organiser of Family Workshops on 26 March
Harry Lyons
Cultural historian exhibiting illustrated panels
Julian Rumball
Puppeteer giving performances on 26 March
Nick Weekes
Performed music/sound piece on 19 March
Griselda Bear
Exhibition curator
For images or more information on the exhibition contact [email protected] or Dr Laura Bear
([email protected]) on the Conflicts in Time project.