Matt & Ross

By Esther Bradley

Matt & Ross forged an ongoing collaboration when they met at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design. With a wealth of projects inspired by location and adaptation, the pair’s site-specific work for jotta’s Together, At The Junction exhibition is a modernist mutation for a dying mall.

The penguin donkey begins it's journey in the Lake District, then lands at the Elephant Rooms as elephant donkey! (Click any image to enlarge it)

'Charging Thunder "Duke-a-roo" Cavalcade', created for the jottaContemporary show at Elephant and Castle, is based around a furniture throwback of the 1930’s: A bookcase for the classic penguin paperback that looks a lot like a donkey, unsurprisingly nick-named, a Penguin Donkey.

60 years since it’s conception, the bookcase is still being produced for a mass market, contrasting sharply with the soon to be demolished shopping centre, widely regarded as a modernist design disaster.

In 1963 the literary pack-mule was transformed into several mythical creatures as a project run by Grizedale Arts, in the Lake District, where Matt is a resident artist. Here the design classic grew a head and tail and proceeded to eat grass in Lawson Park. After discussions with the directors of the company, Matt and Ross arrived at a new use for the Penguin Donkey.

Making it their site-specific, animal answer to the jottaContemporary brief, the duo have mutated the beasts further. Wearing elephant tusks and carrying a castle, they embody changes taken place through its migration to the new south London locale. At its core, the works reference escape and altering localities, particularly relevant to the Elephant and Castle area being a home for migrants and diversity.

Instead of literature, the Penguin Donkey-Elephant is stacked inside with slabs of Kendal Mint Cake, valued by mountaineers for it’s high energy content. Was this what kept it going on the long trip down from Cumbria? We like to think it served as a tasty reward for the explorer-visitors who found their way through south London’s infamous underground maze.

Check out Matt & Ross' upcoming shows here, and the Grizedale write up on the show here.

Get a Life

By Stephanie Grace

The fifth team of collaborators in the great “This Is Why We Meet” experiment are a group of “attention-grabbing” London College of Communications students who are wondering: just how far are people willing to go?

(Click any image to enlarge it)

After a few days of discussion and deliberation between the four LCC students, jotta caught up with them just as they are poised to put their plans into action.

The dream team from LCC includes Yana Naidenov, a second year graphic design student specalising in interaction and the moving image, her previous work has been centered around human interaction and collective performance. Eleanora D’Acci, also on graphic design, Eleanora has chosen the typography pathway, and is interested in ideas, researching and testing. Recent graduate of the graphic design course, Daniel Camacho's final piece for university explored ideas surrounding barriers, borders and the passing of time. While the fourth person in the puzzle, Catarina Chaby is currently studying sound art and design and iikes to experiment with new technology. Through her practice Catarina creates virtual spaces through sound as well as recording live music and bands.

jotta: What have you been up to over the last couple of days?
Yana: “Monday was a workshop at Liverpool Street station, in teams we stood at a distance from each other and attempted to communicate an idea to the other team using only paper, pens and string. It was really hard, because the ideas were so abstract (truth and lies) but we got there in the end.”
Daniel: “It was a good introduction into the way we might work together.”

jotta: What did you think of the previous groups work so far?
Daniel: “I think that because we got to see people’s response, we wanted to go a step ahead, a step further.”
Yana: “Even though the other teams windows were bright and colourful, people weren’t necessarily stopping.”
Eleanora: “We wanted people to stop, to grab their attention.”

jotta: How are you going to do that?
Katrina: “by using the space in between the two windows”
How did you come up with your idea?
Yana: “we wanted to use the idea of the window display to invite you in, that’s why were going to use mannequins”
Eleanora: “we wanted to use the language of the place, we didn’t want the concept to be too abstract or that it could have been made anywhere, brick lane is a place you go to shop. Its about space becoming a place.”

jotta: What ideas do you hope to explore through this project?
Daniel: This project is not only about collaboration or interaction. 'Get a life' aims to take the project one step further and explore human dialogues and social participation.

jotta: What can the audience expect on Monday when your installation goes live?
Daniel: “We want to give people a new experience”
Yana: “We're looking forward to have some fun with it and see the public reaction.”

So if you're in the Shoreditch area next week and bump into some interactive mannequins on the street, don’t say jotta didn’t warn you!

Display: Monday 10th- Sunday 17th August
Private view: Monday 10th August, 6-9pm
WK LONDON
16 HANBURY ST
LONDON
E1 6QR

Elevator Gallery

By Monique Jackson

Cherie Marie Viederfield is co-owner and curator of Elevator Gallery in Mother Studio building in Hackney Wick. Cherie tells jotta about the birth of Hackney WickED and her opinions on the rise of the area.

last image: by Rowan Corkill one of the artists exhibiting in "The Tomorrow People 2009" at the Elevator Gallery (Click any image to enlarge it)

Could you tell me about yourself, your role within the gallery?
I studied fine art at Central Saint Martins. I make sculpture, photomontage and also performance based work under my alter ego Snoozie Hexagon. After I graduated I was on the lookout for cheap studio space and a friend told me about Mother Studios. I took a space in the attic adjacent to a large project space that was to become Elevator Gallery, the rest is history.

What do you think are the primary objectives of Hackney Wicked? Mainly it is about fun. If it isn’t fun I wouldn’t be interested. It’s also about telling the world about the fantastic creative energy here. It’s a concrete paradise.

How do Elevator gallery fit into this? For the festival we will be showcasing the best of emerging arts graduates from the UK in a show called The Tomorrow People.

To what extent do you feel last year’s Hackney WickED was a success? Last year we came up with the idea of doing an art festival on a drunken afternoon at Ingrid Z’s. (Residence gALLERY). It was incredibly haphazard, we had no budget and only 3 months to organize but to our dismay thousands of people turned up and Time out Magazine dedicated an issue to it. They said that Hackney Wick was the new Shoreditch...hilarious!

With money coming in in preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games do you think there’s a danger of the gentrification of Hackney Wick compromising what initially made it a great place for creatives to live and work?
No not at all. The Olympics is happening, we can’t stop it. It would be very foolish for a creative community to stagnate and not be creative. That would be a futile protest. If anything the festival lets the creative community stand their ground. It’s a really exciting place to be right now. None of us know how long it could last. We should celebrate the now whilst its its here.

What advice would you have for graduates and start up studios wanting to make Hackney Wick their home?
Get in quick. It’s a beautiful place, a really vibrant, young, tight-knit artist community. But the word is out, the waiting lists for studios here are growing, big time.

Mark Andrew Webber

Mark Webber likes to carve into slabs of linoleum, and with a little lino-cutting here and a couple of hundred hours there, he meticulously crafts 30-seconds worth of fantastic carved animation, or as he’s dubbed it, linomation. Mark gives us some insight to his lino world, which graced the cover of Crafts Magazine and the pages of Grafik.

What drew you to working with linoleum for your carvings and prints, as opposed to carving wood or other alternative printing methods?


Well, for one thing linoleum is softer than most other forms like wood. I have lots of joint problems (arthritis) especially in my hands, so linoleum works well, and the heat when I work with a heater on the lino feels great. It does not do my hands much good doing the carving, but I just have to keep doing it!  



Linomation is a very unique way of animating, how did you come up with the idea?


Linomation came about because I have a love of animation and a love of my carving work and I saw no reason why I could not combine the two. It seemed to make sense to me, as carving produces lots of prints of the same image and animation uses lots of images that are slightly different.



Typically, how long will one of your animations take to carve? 


It depends. It seems as though I always take things to “the next level,” as in the work is getting more detailed, with bigger frames, and no doubt if I did another one it would involve more frames too. The last linomation I did, for example, was about 500 hours, which was for a 30-second animation. Each frame was carved on a 10 cm squared piece of linoleum.

What’s the process you go through when you create an animated piece?


Using a light box, I align the frames when drawing on the paper. Then I cut the linoleum to the size I need it. Since I’ve drawn the frames on paper, I can rub each frame onto the separate piece of linoleum, making sure to number each one as I go along. Numbering is very important due to the subtle differences each frame has. Then once transferred, the carving begins. After I will scan each lino carving or take a picture of each one. Once I’ve done that then I’ll animate the linoleum carvings, printing each frame. The last one was 297 frames and it took me two days in a print room to just get a set of one prints done.


You also carve city maps out of linoleum, however instead of streets or picturesque landmarks you use words to indicate locations. Why do you choose to carve words as map detail?


The places I was making a map of, which started off as New York, were made up mainly of all these important places—these can be the more well-known areas: museums, the cafes, the shops, the parks, and churches. I chose to use the words, the names of the places, because some people will not even know what these places look like, yet they will have heard about them and know the name. I also like typography, so using type to make a map in this way, using various typefaces, seemed right since lots of the places, museums and shops use various typographies for their signs. The maps are getting more detailed, like the linomations.

How did you get commissioned for the cover of Crafts Magazine?


The Crafts Magazine came about because I got into the “International Society of Typography Designers” with the New York Map, which in turn got me featured in Grafik Magazine. Marcus Piper, who was hired to work on re-designing Crafts Magazine saw the New York Map in Grafik Magazine and emailed me about doing the Crafts Magazine front cover, the first one for the re-design, and I jumped at the chance.

By Emily Thomas

Aaron Rose: DIY Hero

jotta chewed the fat with Aaron Rose, director, teacher, gallerist, musician, publisher and editor, and we’re sure there’s more he does in his spare time. Aaron talks about his film Beautiful Losers and the accompanying London exhibition, DIY London Seen, plus his recent adventures into experimental television and DIY teaching.

jotta: What sparked the idea to make BEAUTIFUL LOSERS?  

AARON: There were some other people that wanted to make the film also. There was a lot of talk of making the movie and that the artists talked to each and decided that it would be better for us to make a film. If there was going to be a film, then the film should come from the art, from the artists and not from an outsider that might sensationalise some things.

jotta: Right, so there were suggestions by other filmmakers and producers? 

AARON: Yeah, I don’t think really any of us wanted to be on the screen. It was just more like, either we did it or someone else was gonna do it and tell the wrong story.

jotta: Who did you make the film for? 

AARON: Kids. I don’t think that young people are taught that they don’t need to follow the rules to succeed. And that’s kind of what the film’s about. So all the way through the editing process I was always thinking about what the kids were going to think.

jotta: Did you do screenings throughout with the kids? Or did you just kind of keep yourself in that frame of mind throughout the editing process? 

AARON: We did maybe half a dozen screenings, all different audiences. Some were with old people, some were with young people. I realised through that whole process that iscreenings are crap! It doesn’t tell you anything. Especially the ones with the kids, you know? I believe you can just make a film and  put it out in the world knowing you did a good job and people will watch. And it’s your vision.

jotta: So, these days the whole nature of the DIY ethos has changed completely due to the ease and immediacy of self-publishing. Where do you find the kind of DIY activity and this same ethos of creating work existing today? 

AARON: In every bedroom, in every garage, every basement, every independent record store, every magazine rack in those independent record stores, in any city in the world. In laptop music. A noise band. Somebody who’s out writing graffiti, somebody who’s making exceptional art, with psychedelic patterns with Spongebob Squarepants in the middle of it. It can exisit in all forms, in all mediums. It’s funny, people like to talk about the internet and culture, the idea of things being human, I think that it just made it bigger. The advent of the internet actually really helped physical media, there’s been a massive resurface of vinyl records. But the internet has actually helped the DIY culture.

jotta: And do you think that this increase in DIY in other forms has also seen an increase in collective creativity or collaboration? Because it’s easier for people to connect basically? 

AARON: I dunno if I’m qualified to answer that one for you. I can’t tell. I know that there’s a lot of people making, so many people that it’s mind-boggling. In all forms, in all mediums, in all ages. And as far as collaboration goes, I’m not entirely sure.

jotta: Was there a strong emphasis on collaboration amongst the artists in the film? 

AARON: There was collaboration and there was competition. Like, someone would show up with a certain kind of brush to someone’s studio, and another person would say, “Hey I wanna use that brush.” It’s like with music, playing each others’ instruments and equipment. The real collaboration was more to do with supporting each other and helping to build each others work. It was understood that the more you push each other the more other people push you. It also came from trying to outdo your friends though- it’s rooted in one-up-manship, which I think is healthy!

By Millie Ross

Read more of the interview on jotta

Main Yard and the Wick

Artist Simon Foxell lives and works in Main Yard Gallery, a tucked away artist run space in Hackney Wick. jotta caught up with him in the lead up to the Hackney Wicked festival to find out the ethos behind Main Yard and Simon’s thought on the future of Hackney Wick and its artist communities.

What is Main Yard Gallery and are they getting involved with this years Hackney Wicked?

Main Yard Gallery is an artist run space in a former print factory. The space is primarily used as a studio, but it is great having a large space to explore the exhibition/curation side of producing the work. It's useful as an artist to have an insight into the way exhibition spaces can alter the work, and what can be done with the spaces when there is no business element in place. While of course we wouldn't object to work being sold, that is in no way part of the concept behind the space. It is entirely focussed on the added freedom and experimentation that running your own space can offer. We usually invite other artists to show with us when we exhibit, and we don't impose any real limitations on what people show - we base our invitations on what work we’ve seen and people we consider to be good artists and then let them get on with it, so we never know exactly what a show is going to look like until its done.

We place great emphasis on curation, maintaining absolute freedom for the artists is very much part of the psychology on the space. We have plans for film nights, performance nights, and to perform plays written by friends - some writers, most not, just to play with the uses of an art space and really enjoy the process. We also want to have an exhibition of just one piece that is a collaboration between say 12 artists of all disciplines just to see what happens.It may well be disastrous, but that in itself could be interesting. We have the space, so we want to push its possibilities.

We are getting involved with Hackney WickED - it's a great idea, and also gives us the chance to be part of something bigger which is exciting. For our show for the festival: The Mountain of Fire and Miracles, we have said to the artists involved “This is the title, take it however you want,” so we really have no idea what to expect from some people. But we trust them....

What attracted you to work in the area?

I was lucky and listened to a recommendation. When I moved to London from Brighton I knew I wanted a live work space, and a friend of mine said "Look around Hackney Wick." So I did and loved it. Then I moved away for a while and ended up in Hackney Central. I came back to the Wick in January this year. Being back after some time has really made me aware of how good this area is. Not just working in close quarters with other artists which has so many benefits, but also that each warehouse is part of a larger network and by having it all on your doorstep you become more engaged. There are loads of artists living in Hackney Central, but they don't make their work there and they don't exhibit there. The Wick has both of those facilities, and it creates a stronger community. Also its hard to be lazy when people are making work all around you. I think its really important for development to feel like a small fish in a big pond and the Wick offers that. It makes me work so much harder!

For a newcomer to Hackney where are some good places to start?

Art-wise Vyner Street is a good one stop shop, then there are some great spaces in Bethnal Green and Mare St, and of course places like Schwartz and Elevator in the Wick, and James Taylor Gallery in Homerton. For socialising, the usual suspects would be the Dolphin on Mare St for late drinking, The Dove and Cat & Mutton on Broadway market, the Victory on Vyner St, and all of Shoreditch of course.

Is there still a squat scene here?

Probably, but very little these days. The squat scene was alive around here when it was just some shabby industrial estate without much industry actually occurring, and people owned buildings that they had kind of forgotten about. Now it's a shabby industrial estate well known for being full of artists who want to live in former industrial spaces, and no-one who owns a building around here is going to forget about it. I suppose it's 'artist gentrification', if that exists - enough artists move in and every owner of warehouse can market it to them and we lap it up. Our place has some DIY plumbing and no central heating, but we love it for the price and the amount of space, and the landlord doesn't have to lift a finger. With that kind of easy money on the table no-one is going to leave their building empty for more than five minutes, and the demand is so high for spaces in the Wick that they don't need to.

Does Hackney have its own creative ideology?

I don't know if it has its own ideology as such, but energy undoubtedly. It has the faciilities and the population to support all kinds of creative channels and ventures and when you have so many creative people living in one borough it keeps the momentum going. It's so hard to keep motivated when you are the only one doing it, and while it can be daunting to sit in London Fields on a sunny Saturday and think 'fuck, half of all these people here are probably artists', it's actually a great thing, because it keeps a buzz and an atmosphere that personally, I find very conducive to work.

I’ve read that your live/work space is being demolished in preparation for the 2012 Olympic games do you feel this reflects a wider problem and if so is this an unfair compromise?

YES it is unfair! Well fairness might not be the right way to view it – it's short-sighted and ignorant. As for the demolition, we don’t know what's going on now. There is a demolition order on the building, and it was meant to be pulled down last year, but it's gone quiet. We are hoping that as the Olympics are haemorrhaging money they have decided to make cut backs and we might be one of them. But it will go eventually. They don’t want people coming to London in 2012 and finding we don’t have air-con on the tube, that we haven’t pedestrianised as many streets as we should, or seeing what the East end actually looks like. The cool press is always wittering on about where the new Hackney is, is it Deptford, Peckham? Who knows. But there won’t be a new Hackney Wick because there isn’t the space. The new Hackney Wick will be a soulless cluster of cheaply and quickly constructed flats to make the area look more civilised. Buildings near by have already started to be demolished, and so many people are going to have to leave, because even the buildings that survive will probably become more expensive because of the new smartness of the area.

I hate that we are living in a city that has no interest or respect for its creativity until it becomes marketable and can be valued. Until then its worthless it seems. There are over 600 artist’s studios in the Wick, which apparently makes it the largest concentration in the world, and this isn’t worth keeping? That is part of the aim of Hackney WickED. The organisers want to raise awareness about the area, because there isn’t anywhere else that can support the number of artists there are around here and it deserves and conservation order.


Any advice to graduates and start up studios or gallleries who are interested in moving to the area?

Just do what you want. The only real obstacle to any of these things is procrastination. The rent we pay is the same or less that any room you're going to find in Hackney Central and if you want to start a space, find one, get a part time job to pay the bills and you're started. I quit my full time job because it was getting in the way of making work, and now scrape by part time, but its worth it to do what I want to do. I take no issue with people wanting more money and we all have to pay what we owe, but then tear the damn credit card up if causes you that much hassle! Finding warehouses that artists can afford to live in, in communities where other artists also live, is going to become more rare as time goes on, and while there is far from any guarantee that it will pay off, for me, or for anyone else that tries, we might living in the last stages of when this kind of thing is going to be easily possible, and you have to do it while you still can.

By Monique Jackson

jotta // This Is Why We Meet Twitterview!

jotta conducted a live and open interview with the Camberwell College of Arts team on Twitter. We were sent questions from you, which we then posted to the team who were working away in their project space at Wieden + Kennedy.

Read the Twitterview on the jotta article!