CAMP ARTISTS PUT ON FRINGE EVENT FOR BAS9
The British Art Show 9 is a is a landmark touring exhibition that celebrates the vitality of recent art made in Britain. Organised every five years by Hayward Gallery Touring the exhibition brings the work of artists defining new directions in contemporary art to four cities across the UK. This year it appears in several arts venues across Plymouth from October-December such as The Box, KARST and The Levinsky Gallery.
CAMP, a member-led network for the creative and visual arts community in Devon and Cornwall, put together ‘HOW LONG’ as a sort of ‘unofficial fringe event’ in response to BAS9 and the theme of ‘Time’.
Based at Vacancy! on Cornwall Street, but spreading across the city in the form of guided walks and creative tours: ‘HOW LONG’ ran for 10 days and combined moving image, experiential art and 2D images.
For the images, CAMP members were invited to submit a wall based work for the exhibition, and detail how long it took them to make it. Each work stated specifically in minutes the time taken which added a unique consideration to each individual piece. Even the guided walks themselves stated the duration in detail as ‘53 minutes’ or ‘47 minutes’.
Workshops were also running throughout this extraordinary and varied exhibition - such as the QUEER SEA SHANTY SINGING by Rhys Morgan and his LGBTQIA+ Sea Shanty choir. The Queer Sea Shanty Choir have formed as part of Rhys’s work ‘Seaweed in the Fruit Locker’, commissioned by MIRROR and this was a unique opportunity to join the choir’s rehearsal and experience this project as it happens.
Stepping outside the venue of Vacancy! and into the city: there were several walks that anyone could join for free. Nicola Westlake led a group through the city centre and up to the Hoe to converse with an ancient elder tree, dressed in a hat decorated with hanging leaves and branches, talking about the mythology of the trees encountered along the way. Participants were then invited to photograph, draw and film the mystical elder tree up on the Hoe.
Another walk, titled: ‘PLYMOUTH CITY CENTRE IN INCONGRUOUS LIES’ took participants through the streets of plymouth with ‘Convincing liar, Tricia Stubberfield’ as the guide. Described as a ‘dubious’ city centre walk, exploring the historical and sociological importance of things you shouldn’t be looking at.
ARTISTS THAT TOOK PART:
Sonia M Ahmad, Rachael Allain, John Baldwin, Ros Bason, Katrina Brown,
Erika Cann, Amber Clarke-McGrath, Rachael Coward, Lizzie Dennison, Chris Drake, Aldous George, Melissa Hampson-Smith and Gaia Hampson-Smith, Nicky Harwood, Gabrielle Hoad, Karen Howse, Charlotte Hoyle, Scott Huitson, Hannah Jacobs, Tina Kutter, Mark Leahy, Thaïs Lenkiewicz and Liba Lenkiewicz Jones, LOW PROFILE, Sam Machell, Gabi Marcellus Temple, Selby McCreery, Rhys Morgan, Robin Mudge, Jacqui Orly, Emily Roach Osborne, Katharine Platts and Phoebe Bray, Daniel Phillips, Louise Rabey, Beverley Roach, Ann Russell, Phil Rushworth, Janet Sainsbury, Carly Seller, Joanne Dorothea Smith, Viv Spencer, Frances Staniforth, Tricia Stubberfield, Luca Vaccari and Imii Hunt, Sarah Voysey, Nicola Westlake, Emma Wilson and Frances Williams.
