History
A panel Discussion on History with Laura Wilson, susan pui san lok, Marcus Coates, Leah Millar, Krijn de Koning and moderated by curator Kate Phillimore.
Our artists will reflect on their commissions developed for New Geographies, as they question how can the past inform our future and discuss the use of symbols, historic references, storytelling an myths within their work.
A zoom link will be sent out to all attendees ahead of the event via email.
About Tracing the East
Trace: to find something or someone that was lost
Reflecting on the traces of New Geographies, in which the locations of ten artist commissions were nominated by people from the East of England, who were invited to suggest forgotten or overlooked places in the region; these digital events: panel discussions, films, podcasts, will be an opportunity to come together to discuss and reflect on three main themes that have emerged from the ten projects, under the idea of ‘the trace’.
Marcus Coates lives and works in London. In the broadest sense his work is concerned with intersubjective relationships, between each other, but also ourselves and other species. Setting out to relate to others, he re-imagines the defining characteristics of these relationships, testing actual and perceived boundaries as a species, as communities and as individuals. New ways of relating are proposed and often put into practice. His approach is often functional with a social and ecological impact in mind. He devises processes to explore the pragmatism and insight that empathetic perspectives and imagined realities can offer. He explicitly addresses a need to create practical and inclusive languages where conventional strategies of understanding and rationalisation prove inadequate. Marcus has collaborated with people from a wide range of disciplines including anthropologists, ornithologists, wildlife sound recordists, choreographers, politicians, psychiatrists, palliative care consultants, musicians, primatologists amongst others. Exhibitions and performances include: Wilderness, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Germany, 2019; The Land We Live In, The Land We Left Behind, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2018; Ask the Wild, series of venues inc Tate St Ives, Whitechapel Gallery and Whitstable Biennale, 2017 – 2019; Animals and Us, Turner Contemporary, 2018; As Above, So Below, IMMA, Dublin, 2017; Arrivals/Departures, Nature Calendar, Utrecht Central Station, Netherlands, 2017; Ape Culture, HKW Berlin, 2015; The Trip, Serpentine Gallery, London and Implicit Sound, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, 2011; Psychopomp, Milton Keynes Gallery, 2010; Marcus Coates, Kunsthalle, Zurich, Switzerland, 2009; Altermodern, Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London, 2009.
Krijn de Koning (1963) followed art education at the Rietveld Academy (NL), The Ateliers (NL) and the ‘Institut Des Hautes Etudes En Art Plastique’ (FR). He creates site-specific sculptures and installations for exhibitions and public places. Simple architectural forms and colour are his tools to achieve large changes in the given places that he is invited to make a work for. In many of his project the idea of ‘usage’ is incorporated, you can enter the works, sit or hang out in them. His interventions raise questions about how architecture is conditional in our experience of reality and how a transformation of a place can generate specific meaning.
Large projects have been accomplished for the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam (NL), 2010, the Musée de Beaux Arts de Nantes (FR) 2011, the Edinburgh Art Festival (UK), 2013, CCStrombeek (B), 2016 and ‘Life’, Saint-Nazaire (FR), 2019 Large public works have been created in the city of Utrecht (NL) 2013, Hasselt (B) 2014 and Rennes (FR) 2018.
susan pui san lok is an artist and writer based in London. Born in England, with parents from Hong Kong and mainland China, she grew up on the London/Essex border speaking fluent Chinglish. Her work ranges across moving image, installation, sound, performance and text, evolving out of interests in diasporic culture, archives, language, translation, memory, migration, nostalgia, aspiration, place and displacement.
Solo exhibitions include seven by seven at Glasgow International Festival 2020 (postponed) and A COVEN A GROVE A STAND at Firstsite, Colchester (2019), part of the New Geographies programme – two related bodies of works linked by the artist’s ongoing research into the histories and folklore around the witch persecutions in the England and Scotland. RoCH Fans & Legends was commissioned by QUAD, Derby (2015) and the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester (2016) as part of their 30th anniversary programme, and explores the numerous adaptations of the late Jin Yong/Louis Cha’s globally popular martial arts epic, The Condor Trilogy (1957-63), adapted tens of times in the last few decades yet only recently translated into English. Faster, Higher was a five-screen installation at MAI/Montreal Arts Interculturels (2014), Winchester Discovery Centre (2012), originally commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella (FVU) for BFI Southbank Gallery, to coincide with the Beijing Olympics (2008).
Laura Wilson (b. 1983 Belfast, Northern Ireland, lives & works in London) is interested in how history is carried and evolved through everyday materials, trades and craftsmanship. She works with specialists to develop sculptural and performative works that amplify the relationship between materiality, memory and tacit knowledge.
Wilson’s interdisciplinary and research-based works have been exhibited widely including at: Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery (2020); V&A, London; Nicoletti Contemporary, London; and Bloomsbury Theatre, London (2019); The British Museum, London, UK with Block Universe; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK; and The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London, UK(2018); SPACE, London; Guest Projects, London; and Invisible Dust (2017); Delfina Foundation (2016 & 2017) RIBA, London; and Site Gallery, Sheffield UK (2016); Whitstable Biennial (2014); Camden Arts Centre, London and Turner Contemporary, Margate (2013); W139, Amsterdam and De Warande, Turnhout, Belgium (2012). Her project Trained on Veda, a malted loaf and evolving artwork was initiated during her residency at Delfina Foundation in 2016 and is currently being developed in partnership with TACO, Grand Union, Site Gallery and MIMA, supported by Arts Council England. She has forthcoming projects with Mansions of the Future, Lincoln; POOL, Johannesburg, South Africa; Open Space, London; UCL Culture, London and has recently been awarded the Jerwood New Work Fund and an A-N Bursary for new work in 2021.
Kate Phillimore is a curator specialising in public realm commissioning, working with artists in socially engaged, public contexts.
Recent projects include a mile-long public art commission with Sonia Boyce for Crossrail, and a four-part commission by Jessie Brennan for the Royal Docks. She has worked on a variety of high profile public art commissions for other clients such as Canal & River Trust (Hinterlands, ongoing), The London Transport Museum (Cabbies Shelters, 2014 with Kathy Prendergast, Emma Smith and Victoria Turnbull) and the Greater London Authority (Management of Fourth Plinth Shortlisting of Elmgreen and Dragset, Katharina Fritsch, 2011). Kate was Assistant Curator with the Whitstable Biennale for three iterations from 2010-2014 where she commissioned new work by artists including John Walter, Louisa Martin, Rachel Reupke, Das Hund, Mark Aerial Waller and Hannah Lees. Kate’s interest in the public realm extends to art publishing, having worked for several years with Publish and Be Damned on various commissions and fairs before co-founding Three Letter Words with Louise O’Hare, a charitable organisation that supports artists’ independent publishing through commissioning new artworks, performances and writing. This year Kate is launching ZELDA with Mary Cork, a new art advisory that approaches the visual arts ecosystem holistically, keeping artists at the core of the organisation’s work.
Image credit: Laura Wilson, Deep, Deepen, Deepening (2019). Commissioned by New Geographies and Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery. Photo: Rui Pignatelli.
