Wednesday 30th April 2008
(ref:
WLCT 51/2008)
The Turnpike Gallery showcases international and local artists in its latest exhibition opening on Saturday 17th May 9.30am-3.30pm until 5 July 2008. Organised by London-based Angela Kingston, ‘Art with Strangers’ presents artworks made with other people, who started out as strangers. Featuring film, photography, drawing and installation, the exhibition includes people from Switzerland, New York, Edinburgh, London, Wigan and Leigh.
Jordan Baseman’s artwork features a home movie from the North West Film Archive. Shot by local man Frank Rigby in 1972, it is a personal time-capsule about the famous Bickershaw Music Festival that took place a few miles from the Turnpike Gallery. Baseman traced Rigby and interviewed him, and combined movie and interview to create a ‘then and now’ artwork about the fragility of memory and the passing of time.
In partnership with Ashton, Leigh and Wigan PCT Kathryn Boyd worked with homeless people in Wigan and asked them to take photographs with disposable cameras and their mobile phones. The response was initially slow, but as Boyd got to know them individually, the homeless people came forward with images of their daily lives. Boyd then made composite images, an example of which is a drop-in centre and a make-shift camp. There are excerpts, too, from her diary which convey her growing appreciation of her collaborators.
Sitting on a purpose built Dry Stone wall in the gallery, we can view the work by Swiss artist Sonja Feldmeier, who is exhibiting in the UK for the first time in Art with Strangers. She made her video Pot Luck with immigrants in New York, where she asked individuals to create an image of their home town or country using a plate of their favourite food and talk about their experiences.
Ben Rivers’ film, This is My Land, is a sympathetic portrait of Jake Williams, a reclusive individual who lives alone in the middle of a forest in Aberdeenshire. Anne Elliot has worked closely with Jeanette Bell, a psychiatric patient at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. Charlotte Ginsborg approached people who work in her local shops and Adam Green placed newspaper advertisements stating that he wanted to photograph parents with their children.
Also included in the exhibition are the results of an exchange between young people from Hindley Community High School and students from the ArtGarage, an afterschool club in North Adams, USA. Having never met, they have made two-part artworks that they exchanged by post.
A programme of activities and events for children and adults accompanies the exhibition. Please contact the gallery office for more information on 01942 404469.
