Some links to other projects/things of interest in Stoke-on-Trent.

Stoke in the guardian

Project by Andy Parker

Replace project

Andrew Brown

For 'Resurrecting the obsolete' in September 2012 my modus operandi was to try to retain an open mind as I walked around the site, listening, recording, taking photographs and simply enjoying the experience. I brought my existing interests:

• Post-industrial landscapes
• Exploring moments in time, being ‘present’
• Thresholds and spaces betwixt and between

and approaches:

• Retracing steps
• Design direct embodied experience
• Solitary vs. collective
• Making use of what is there
• The particular effectiveness of sound

and found myself initially drawn to signage, personal effects and inscriptions that gave insights into the the former Spode workforce. As I explored tentative routes began to form for a group walk, taking participants from one sonic environment to another.

For ’Topographies of the Obsolete’ March 2013 I returned with recording equipment and the intention of effecting a temporary repair of the works bell. This I recorded from various parts of the site.

I’d been put in contact with local archivist Ray Johnson (from the Staffordshire Film Archive) with whom I spent a couple of highly productive hours, as well as one of the key members of Airspace gallery, Anna Francis. Meeting her, Glen and Andy provided a cultural dimension that was previously missing for me.

The bus tour of Bradwell woods, Etruria, Gladstone and Burslem was also significant, making the place more comprehensible as a city. To develop this, and to begin to address the second strand of my project I performed several walks, to Cobridge, along the canal towpath to Westport Lake, back to Spode via Burslem and Hanley Park, to the Garden Festival site, and finally to Harecastle tunnel.

Overall I am pleased to have overcome my initial rush of naieve excitement regarding the site and, through having now worked there a second time and for a longer period, I feel I am better-placed to produce a mature response.

Laura Twigg

Working with my enjoyment of materials my work draws from the interaction between the readymade and the handmade. Collecting found materials within the space is a communication of the relationship between material and form. By contrasting these I am exploring the context of objects in relation to the histories of the material. I am inspired by the materiality of objects, their nature of form and how we adapt these into our environments. I am interested in the tension between natural and fabricated form and sculpturally how this creates a sense of spatial awareness. Informed by a sense of labour and craft, ceramic form communicates a concern of craft and mass production. Raw clay communicates malleability, allowing me to directly react with the material in a space in an instinctive way. Completing a residency at Spode in my hometown of Stoke-on-Trent has identified an exchange of cultural materiality between students from The University of Nottingham Trent, Muthesius Kunsthochschule, Bergen Academy of Art & Design, The Royal Academy of Art Copenhagen, Newcastle-upon-Tyne University and Sheffield Hallam University. Identifying these new relationships has broadened my conceptual understanding of ceramics and sculpture. Working with ceramicists and technicians has allowed me to access ideas and combine a social awareness with writings such as ‘Failure’ by Lisa Le Feuvre and ‘The Dematerialisation of the art object’ by Lucy Lippard.

In Memory of Holocene

Reactive dyes in Stoke on Trent

March 2013

Margrethe Kolstad Brekke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4pr8EmqGtg

entering anthropocene scetchwork

sitespecific workshop initiated by Lisa Stenbro

Yas Island UAE, February 2013

Margrethe Kolstad Brekke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZbb75X90Zw&feature=share

In Memory of Pleistocene

Reactive dyes in Stoke on Trent, September 2012

Margrethe Kolstad Brekke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1pBgBFfo_w&feature=share

Site specific work in progress in an abandoned paint factory

We decided upon an abandoned place in an ruinous state where we could work uninterrupted, to try out methods, concepts and materials in a direct response to a site. It was intense work for two weeks, in the cold and limited daylight of february. We made an opportunity for others to come over to see our works in progress and have a discussion about out them. 

It was a chance to get into working mode before the second part of the Stoke Project.

Karin

I wanted to use the time in this space to develop strategies of site specific works. It is a very different experience to work out side with much harder physical conditions than inside in the studio. If you just can keep warm for two hours and if the clay freezes over after half an hour that of cause affects the work and you have to find ways to work around it. I used materials on site to be part of my interventions which also pushed and shaped the work in more than just the obvious, physical way.

Erna

Ruins are an ongoing process, nothing is today as it was yesterday, and it won´t be the same tomorrow. It is a natural process where nature or man keep layering on top of each other, dust, leaves, trash, spray paint etc. I attempted to highlight that gradual transition by either adding to or taking away from a structure, to build up or clean away the layers, to dramatize the dreamlike nature of the change. 

There were three attempts:

In an Paint Factory, using paint as a material has many implications, in the life of this building the focus has shifted from being a producer of paint to being a recipient of it in the form of spray paint. It is a natural growth, gradual growth, as is the accumulation of leaves, plants and trash.

In a ruinous place there are many layers to be found, dust and broken glass cover the floors. The glass shards were cleaned and now shine when the light hits the dusty floor.

Porcelain was laid out on the floor, it picked up, natural pigments, left from another artist, it froze in the frost and a new form of porcelain roses was formed. A porcelain, frostrose desert.