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| 'Refuse', 2004 |
Alice
Bradshaw is an artist and curator based in Halifax, Yorkshire. She was one of the
founding members of ‘Contents May Vary’, a collaborative artist-led project
that began in 2004 as a means of showing work, whilst developing concerns and
critical dialogues with other artists. Since then she has exhibited
internationally, and curates projects in a variety of contexts. Robert Foster
spoke to Alice Bradshaw at Cornerhouse, Manchester on the 13th April
2012:
RF:
Hi Alice, thank you for your time. You graduated in 2006. Did you know what you
wanted to do afterwards? Did you have a strong sense of direction with what you
wanted to achieve?
AB: The only strong sense of direction I
had was that at least for another year I didn’t want to be in education. Having
gone through education since being in nursery school, and not having had a
break. So even though I thought I might go on to do an MA at a later date, I
knew that I didn’t want to go straight on to do an MA. I was quite certain
about that. I still haven’t gone back to do an MA. It’s something that I maybe want
to do soon, or maybe not. I don’t know. I wanted to do something outside of
education, and work on my own practice. That was my direction at the time.
RF:
Did you feel that you wanted to prove to yourself that you still would make
work outside of that institutional setting?
AB: Not necessarily prove to myself, but
when you’re in an institution you have to do certain things, to certain
deadlines. Not have that structure, that demand, was something that I wanted to
pursue, and to see how that worked. Also, I found that when I was a student
there was a certain stigma attached to it in terms of getting gallery shows. So
I wanted to see if it were possible to go down that route.
RF:
So had you already started ‘Contents May Vary’ prior to graduating?
AB: Yeah, roughly halfway through the
degree. We still have a contentious issue about when exactly it was. I think it
was December 2004, but Richard [Shields] thinks it’s later than that. It was
around the time in second year when we were asked to do an outside of
university group show, or something like that. It didn’t have to be an
exhibition, but it seemed the obvious route coming from a sculpture fine art
course. We didn’t take this challenge lightly and organized a massive group
show at Victoria Baths, which was ‘Dive’.
That was the start of the curatorial interest I guess. There were other
projects going on at the same time by other groups of students on the same
course. There was a critical mass of like-minded people around this particular
show, and that sort of morphed into ‘Contents May Vary’. That was the
trajectory that led to a collective way of working. Sitting around in pubs
talking about the same kind of things.
RF:
How did it develop from that point onwards?
AB: I don’t think we were necessarily too
critical about what we were doing at the start of it. We were thinking more
about the possibilities of what we could achieve. Finding the venues was the
main focus, because it’s not as easy as just finding a perfect suitable space.
The other things that came from organising shows; liaising with artists,
finding the right people, doing the press releases...It was probably quite
pragmatic in a sense, the stuff we were finding out, and that was involved in
the process of organising shows. The curating side of it, the considered
thinking and the thematic interests developed alongside, but the more critical
concern for that curatorial aspect developed at a slower rate than maybe the
logistical side of it. Our conversations were more about our own work, and how
that fitted in with the space. The critical curatorial discourse was a later
development. The themes of the shows were, and I think still are, inspired from
our own practices. Ed [Payne] came up with the idea of ‘Ten By Ten’. That was our second or third show. Any piece of work a
maximum of ten centimetres by ten centimetres. So quite a nice open brief. That was in the Reading Rooms, which was an
old office space, so this idea of something desk-based inspired that.
I think we always knew from the first show
that working in a challenging space we had to work site-responsively, or
site-specifically because the space was so demanding of that. To work with the
space, you couldn’t just treat it like a white cube. It wasn’t just an empty
vessel to have art in, it demanded something in response to it, or at least
alter it. So this idea of the site-responsive was a natural progression from
there, and stayed with us.
RF:
Did that mean that you looked for less formal contexts, and more variety than
just the white cube?
AB: It wasn’t so much an anti white cube
agenda, although one of the original members, John Turner, was quite anti white
cube and was interested in that. It’s difficult to say the collective opinion
was this, because it was seven, down to two, different opinions, but I think
this idea of working with interesting spaces or odd, non-white cube spaces was
a concern amongst us, definitely.
RF:
Do you think that ‘DIY’ process of putting on shows in various locations is
fairly imperative for young artists to do as a way of developing their
practice, and working in different formats?
AB: I think personally my opinion is that
it is a good way of working. I don’t think it’s the only valid way of working,
but the strength of doing a ‘DIY’ exhibition is that you get to know how things
operate, so that rather than being an artist who works directly with a gallery,
it gives you an insight into the behind the scenes stuff, and taking on roles;
working on the other side of the fence with other artists. It gives you this perspective
of the organisational side, so you are more appreciative as an artist towards
what goes on I guess.
RF:
Was it from ‘Contents May Vary’ that you developed your own curatorial
interests and went on to curate projects in there own right?
AB: Quite shortly after university I moved
over to Yorkshire and through meeting people there I developed different
collaborations. I was involved in a project called ‘Centrifuge’ at Salford Restoration Office in 2007, and as part of
their initial stage of development it asked all of the artists involved to
present something they found of interest. So, a really open brief, and I had
seen ‘Milk, Two Sugars’ work, which is Bob Milner and Tom Senior. I asked to
see them and ask what are you about, and what do you represent. From that we
ended up doing a temporary art show at Bates Mill in Huddersfield. Everyone was
based around there and there was a consensus of why was there nothing
contemporary happening in Huddersfield? There were galleries doing stuff
occasionally, but not really. The spin-off, if you like, that turned out to be
the bigger thing was Temporary Art Space in Halifax, and obviously me and Bob
share a studio now.
RF:
And you also run ‘Alice and Bob Curate’?
AB: That was our continued collaboration
post Temporary Art Space. We were doing some curatorial stuff after Temporary
Art Space, before we moved into the studio. That’s our project space, but it’s
not fixed to a location.
RF:
You offer advice via the blog. It was informative to read some of the questions
that people had sent you. Do you see that as a way of staying outwardly
focused, and a way of assisting young artists?
AB: Yeah definitely. I’m really interested
in peer networks and being supportive of a general community, even if you don’t
personally know the people you’re giving advice to. A couple of people have
said, “Are you doing that for free?” because in other business situations you
would charge a fortune for consultancy.
But it’s also not a dead serious ‘we are
professionals who give professional advice’. We can turn it on it’s head and
give a really silly, frivolous answer.
RF:
You’ve also gone on to organize Holmfirth Arts Festival?
AB: I co-curate what we were originally
calling the individual arts strand if you like, but it’s broader in its remit
than just contemporary art. There are other curators and producers involved in
that. Last year director John Best went to see a show that me and Vanessa Haley
were involved in, again at Bates Mill in Huddersfield, and off the back of that
he asked for a meeting to discuss the possibility of us curating at the
festival. Last year we curated the film screening, and this year we’ve taken on
a lot more as it went down quite well with both the Arts Council, and the
public as well.
RF:
You’ve had quite a varied career. You have your own practice, you curate
projects in their own right and you’ve done some work with a-n magazine?
AB: Yeah, I’ve blogged occasionally on
there and through that online interaction, they’ve invited me to do a couple of
talks and review degree shows as well.
RF:
Do you think it’s important to have that multi-faceted approach to practice,
with various strands to what you’re doing to keep things in development, and
keep that learning cycle going?
AB: For me it is, because it also keeps
things in perspective. It’s really good to get focused, but also to come out of
that focus and keep a broader view as well. For a long time I was calling
myself an artist that also did a bit of curatorial stuff, but now I feel that
I’m happier with that balance, and I’m alright calling myself a curator. But
it’s still a tricky thing to be an artist, and also these terms as well, these
definitions…
RF:
Well they seem so fixed, when in fact it’s much more varied and differs from
case to case.
AB: Definitely, and people have different
ideas as to what these terms mean as well.
RF:
You’ve also got a show opening in Melbourne…
AB: Yeah, yesterday…
RF:
You’ve exhibited in Europe, South America, and Australasia. Do you think that
being able to exhibit in that wider global context has allowed you to read your
work in different ways, and expanded how you understand your work?
AB: I think a lot of the international
shows have been video works because it’s been so much easier to send video work
to another country, but working on international festivals, going over and
participating is a really useful and inspiring experience to find out how other
people work in different cultures. I would love to do more of that festival
work.
RF:
You’ve also just finished ‘Morph Plinth in Residence with Alice Bradshaw’,
which toured a number of UK institutions. Could you give a brief synopsis of
the project, and the motives behind it?
AB: It was these guys, Karl England, Ted
Haddon and Mark Jackson, from London who ordered a normal sized plinth for
their show. In return from the manufacturers they got this tiny plinth and
thought it was a joke, but either they’d entered the dimensions wrong, or
they’d made a mistake. The absurdity that the manufacturing company would
actually think that they would want a plinth that size! After the initial panic
they thought that the humour and comedy in what they’d got was valid and
interesting. So they put an open call out via Twitter for people to propose
stuff to put on this plinth, and my proposal was a thirty metre long elastic
band, which is lots of elastic bands cut and glued together; one huge,
dysfunctional elastic band. The process they had was that there was a selection
committee, the three guys that run the project, and the current artist, and
they sit down in the pub and have a preview. With the artist they do a
shortlist selection to decide on the next artist to have the plinth. So before
me there were five or six people, artists who had showed on this plinth, and
they just picked local pubs, had a preview there and that was the outcome of
it. But, when I was selected I had just had some major surgery so I couldn’t go
down to London, and wasn’t allowed to travel. So they said why don’t we send it
to you and you can have a preview from your bed or something like that. An in
residency situation which I thought was a really nice idea. After two weeks I
was out and about a bit, and also off work, so I had all this time and freedom
to go off and see exhibitions. So I took it absolutely everywhere, loads of
places, and guerilla photographed the plinth in these range of artistic spaces
from The Lowry, to Leeds City Art Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park etc. Then
the documentation went on the blog and Twitter, and I went down to London for
the end of residency, and to select the next artist. They said that my take on
it had been successful because of getting it out to all these different venues,
and that they’re going to follow that model from now on.
RF:
You use a lot of social networking; blogs, Twitter, things like that. Do you
feel that it is an imperative part of what you need to learn to be able to
promote your practice, and your projects, successfully?
AB: In this day and age it’s important to
be on social media, I think it may not be necessary, but as individual
practitioners that whole networking aspect is really important anyway, so
social networking is an extension of that. For me it’s really important to for
finding out what’ going on, events listings and people recommending stuff. Just
keeping in touch with people. Sometimes it functions as a really public email,
the to and fro of ideas. We’ve come up with projects on Twitter, just by having
a bit of a joke. In fact, the ‘University
Of Incidental Knowledge’ came from a joke on Twitter. Joking about the pub
quiz we had just been to, not being the university of incidental knowledge, and
then I was like hang on that’s quite interesting, let’s make it a reality.
RF:
Do you think it’s a positive part of practice to follow these incidental urges,
the things that might just come up and follow those as a way of working?
AB: I think that for me it’s an important
learning strategy, especially for the visual arts, and general creativity
anyway. Noticing things that are interesting, and being able to reframe
something in a way that takes it out of its original context. With the
incidental knowledge project it’s taking something mundane, a fact or anything
like that, and reframing by putting it within a coursework scenario. The shifting
of boundaries that we do as artists that still apply within information
systems, a reconfiguration in a way.
RF:
Finally, if you could offer any advice to students that are about to graduate
what would it be?
AB: Taking risks is really important, and being
instinctive about what you’re doing so not being overly concerned about perhaps
what other people will think, preempting an audience reaction, or thinking,
“what if people critique me or don’t critique me?” Going instinctively, and
taking risks instead. And being a bit bulshy as well, why not?
Alice Bradshaw’s solo show, ‘Museum Of Contemporary Rubbish’ is
currently on show at ScreenSpace, Melbourne, Australia, and runs until the 26th
May 2012.
Alice Bradshaw: http://www.alicebradshaw.co.uk/
Contents May Vary: http://www.contentsmayvary.org/
Alice and Bob Curate: http://aliceandbobcurate.wordpress.com/
Holmfirth Arts Festival: http://www.holmfirthartsfestival.co.uk/
University Of Incidental Knowledge: http://universityincidentalknowledge.wordpress.com/
Museum Of Contemporary Rubbish: http://museumofcontemporaryrubbish.blogspot.co.uk/
