Gathering Folio
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
<strong>Gathering</strong><br />
Creative Practice Portfolio<br />
Detail of <strong>Gathering</strong> structure, photo: Jack Cornish<br />
Julia Heslop & Ed Wainwright
4 Description / Reserch Questions<br />
5 Statement<br />
6 Overview of Outcomes and Dissemination<br />
Factual Information<br />
Contents<br />
8 Research Context: Hatton Gallery & Schwitters’ Merzbau<br />
10 Improvisation and Adhocism<br />
11 A Circular Material Ecology<br />
14 Research and Making Process<br />
Relations between Art & Architecture<br />
15 Collaborative Conservations<br />
19 Collaboration and Prototyping<br />
22 An Itinerant Practice<br />
25 Unfinished Objects and Spaces<br />
Immersive and Intimate Spaces<br />
26 Improvisational Geometries<br />
27 Hatton Install<br />
28 From Use to Reuse<br />
29 <strong>Gathering</strong> Lives<br />
30 Outcomes and Dissemination<br />
52 Testimonials<br />
55 Bibliography<br />
Development and construction process, studio, photo: authors<br />
2
Detail of armatures, Hatton Gallery, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
3
Description<br />
<strong>Gathering</strong> was an architectural installation and exhibition space, commissioned<br />
by and installed in the internationally significant Hatton Gallery, Newcastle<br />
upon Tyne, from September 2018 to February 2019 as part of the exhibition Exploding<br />
Collage. Built from reclaimed, recycled and adapted materials of timber,<br />
metal and fabric, the work consisted of seven ‘grottoes’ or ‘pods’, each hosting<br />
the work of artists responding creatively to a historically significant, but canonically<br />
ignored, female collage artist. <strong>Gathering</strong> was digitally scanned to produce<br />
a non-exact digital copy - Re<strong>Gathering</strong> - which was presented in an immersive<br />
installation at Newcastle University in mid-January 2020.<br />
Research Questions<br />
1. How can we rethink material value in art and architecture through the<br />
retrieval and reuse of waste materials?<br />
2. How can we rethink space, form and function through art-architecture<br />
collaborations which involve improvisational making practices?<br />
Prior to artist interventions, Hatton Gallery, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
4
Statement<br />
Placed at the intersection between art and architecture, the work explores material<br />
reuse and value through a process of retrieval, improvisation and adaptation.<br />
The issue of waste is a key concern within the fields of art and architecture,<br />
which produce material as a matter of course, whilst the building and construction<br />
industry is the industrial economy’s biggest consumer of material resources<br />
and the biggest producer of waste. Through <strong>Gathering</strong> we aimed to explore the<br />
material and aesthetic potentials of ‘waste’, examining how disparate materials<br />
could be combined, ‘made good’ and refined through a purposeful yet improvised<br />
process of rescue and reuse. There are three key areas that this work<br />
contributes to:<br />
1. Improvisation: Engaging with Kurt Schwitters’ MerzBau – immersive<br />
collages of found and rescued materials - and Jencks and Silver’s work<br />
on Adhocism (2013 [1972]), we explored processes of ‘intentional adhocism’<br />
by gathering and sorting materials and experimenting with their<br />
material and structural possibilities. Yet through a process-based ap<br />
proach we explored the ‘gap’ between planning and improvisation,<br />
understanding that adhoc processes are rarely wholly spontaneous.<br />
2. Circular material ecologies: <strong>Gathering</strong> was also influenced by recent<br />
work on degrowth (D’Alisa et al., 2014; Oslo Architecture Trienalle, 2019),<br />
scarcity (Till, 2014) and circular economies (Baker-Brown, 2017), which<br />
explore the limits to economic growth in an ecologically finite world. We<br />
examined the creative potentials of material limits – an area which is<br />
under-developed in practice - and explored how this could offer new improvisational<br />
processes, as well as new forms of use value and aesthetic<br />
value through the integration of waste materials.<br />
3. Art-Architecture collaboration: Collaboration across the boundaries<br />
of art and architecture was significant. Through this we challenged the<br />
object-centred approach to art and architectural production, or as Ingold<br />
(2010) terms it the ‘hylomorphic schema’, which imposes finished, predefined<br />
form on the material world. Instead, a creative studio process was<br />
key to experimentation and improvisation, allowing us to follow a loose<br />
plan, but with no predefined object in mind.<br />
5
Overview of Outcomes and Dissemination<br />
Made/installed<br />
1. A large-scale installation running over four months.<br />
2. Re<strong>Gathering</strong> – the creation of a digital replica of the structure.<br />
3. Exhibition and installation of Re<strong>Gathering</strong> with invited artists.<br />
Presented/hosted<br />
1. Series of artist events.<br />
2. Talks – a public seminar and a de-installation event.<br />
3. Interactive digital replica to be hosted on Hatton Gallery website.<br />
Factual Information<br />
<strong>Gathering</strong> is comprised of an interconnected sequence of flexible ‘grottoes’ or<br />
‘pods’ assembled from found, given and recycled material. The structure was<br />
approximately 8 x 8 metres in size, and the grottoes ranged in size, with heights<br />
between 2.5 and 3.8 metres. The installation was formed from planed pallet<br />
sections for the main vertical and horizonal elements of the grottoes; 3mm<br />
mild steel plate sections, plasma and laser cut, for precision-engineered joining<br />
elements; ethically and sustainably sourced cotton fabric for the interior<br />
skin; found and reclaimed plywood and medium density fibreboard (MDF) for<br />
cladding; reclaimed pallets for the flooring substructure; found and reclaimed<br />
plywood, MDF and chipboard for the flooring surface coated in non-toxic, water-based<br />
floor paint. Each grotto was lit inside and was designed as a blank<br />
canvas. Every fortnight the work accommodated the artistic intervention of a<br />
new artist, each responding to the work of an under-represented female collage<br />
artist, including: Sonia Allori, Ruth Hemus & Vaia Paziana, Marian Casey, Tess<br />
Denman-Cleaver, Jackie Haynes, Mani Kambo, L-INK, Heather Ross, and Anka<br />
Schmid. An original Kurt Schwitters collage was also housed in <strong>Gathering</strong>. The<br />
work was commissioned and funded by the Hatton Gallery through £7,000 from<br />
Tyne & Wear Museums and Archives. Newcastle University School of Architecture,<br />
Planning & Landscape’s Architectural Research Committee also granted<br />
£2000. A follow-up research project with graduate students, Re<strong>Gathering</strong>, explored<br />
LiDAR scanning and duration, and will form an online, digital legacy<br />
sponsored by Tyne & Wear Museums and Archives.<br />
6
Detail of armatures, Hatton Gallery, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
Kurt Schwitters, MerzBau<br />
Photo: Wilhelm Redemann, 1933 © DACS 2007<br />
7
Research Context<br />
Hatton Gallery and Schwitters’ MerzBau<br />
Exploding Collage explored how avant-garde artists of the early 20th century<br />
expanded the notion of collage into immersive, often ephemeral, formats. The<br />
exhibition aimed to foreground the hidden stories and the ‘blindspots’ in the<br />
history of collage, which have often left out women. The contemporary artists<br />
in the exhibition drew attention to the work of these artists, such as Dora Maar<br />
(1907-1997), an early pioneer of photomontage whose promising career was<br />
overshadowed by being seen as Picasso’s muse, and the Surrealist artist Meret<br />
Oppenheim (1913-1985).<br />
Exploding Collage was the second exhibition to take place in the Hatton Gallery<br />
after a major refurbishment. It followed on from a programme of exhibitions<br />
and wider activity (such as artist Toby Paterson’s ‘Hatton Pavilion’). This activity<br />
examined the central role that the Hatton Gallery and its large collection played<br />
in the history and development of the avant garde after World War II, and<br />
particularly the role of artists working in the Fine Art department at Newcastle<br />
University at the time, whose practices often merged art and architecture, such<br />
as Schwitters, Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton.<br />
Kurt Schwitters. Merz Barn Wall. Image © Hatton<br />
Gallery, 2017. Photo: Colin Davison.<br />
8
A central reference point of this commission was Kurt Schwitters’ MerzBauten<br />
(Merz Buildings). Schwitters is often considered the founder of installation art,<br />
and the word Merz was created by Schwitters to describe his collage and assemblage<br />
works based on scavenged scrap materials. Schwitters’ Merz Barn Wall - a<br />
three-dimensional artwork made from plaster, paint and found objects (itself<br />
an ‘exploded collage’ on an architectural scale) - is the largest surviving portion<br />
of the MerzBauten and is on permanent display in the Hatton Gallery. His first<br />
MerzBau in Hannover was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943, but within this<br />
work Schwitters built around 40 niches or ‘grottoes’ that acted as shrines dedicated<br />
to his artistic influences. These grottoes were constructed into the walls of<br />
the building and combined geometric forms with fluid, organic shapes. Schwitters’<br />
MerzBau contained ‘shrines’ to (amongst others) iconic female Dada artists<br />
Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943) and Hannah Höch (1889-1978).<br />
<strong>Gathering</strong> referenced the Hannover MerzBau, being a space to host and celebrate<br />
the work of artists with obscured legacies, yet the work also amalgamated<br />
found and repurposed materials and experimented with collage as an expanded<br />
practice through installation.<br />
<strong>Gathering</strong>, in process of installation,<br />
Hatton Gallery. Photo: Authors<br />
Kurt Schwitters, MerzBau<br />
Photo: Wilhelm Redemann, 1933 © DACS 2007<br />
9
Improvisation and Adhocism<br />
The collaging of found, recycled and reclaimed materials was a process of improvisation<br />
and testing – in essence an adhoc material process. Jencks and Silver<br />
(2013 [1972]) discuss ‘retrieval adhocism’ - the finding, gathering or ‘gleaning’<br />
of materials, and the recycling of them for new uses. This is both a creative<br />
and resourceful process - a ‘make do’, bricolage approach. <strong>Gathering</strong> emerged<br />
through a process of collecting and sorting materials and then experimenting<br />
with their material possibilities through intuitively improvising, playing and<br />
testing them, as well as through drawings, paintings, models and 1:1 prototypes.<br />
Ingold (2010) challenges what he terms the ‘hylomorphic model of creation’ -<br />
the creation/replication of finished forms that are already settled. Instead, matter<br />
is not passive, and artists and architects must follow the lines of material<br />
flow through an ongoing, generative process of improvisation and rhythm. We<br />
explored how this approach is actively applied methodologically, through collaborative<br />
art and architecture studio processes, drawing attention to the relationship<br />
between plan, process and outcome. We found that this was more than<br />
a process of blind chance or a mere assembly of disparate parts; instead it was a<br />
purposeful process of intentional adhocism - the creation of an integrated whole<br />
through the careful selection of a simple combination of materials, the refinement<br />
of the waste materials and the interplay of use value and aesthetic value.<br />
The contrasting of materials (fabric, timber and fixings), forms (hard structures<br />
and soft enclosing envelopes) and light created this intentional adhocism.<br />
A gleaning site, photo: authors<br />
Reused sheet material for flooring, marked<br />
out prior to painting, photo: authors<br />
10
A Circular Material Ecology<br />
<strong>Gathering</strong> also explored how, through the reprocessing and remodelling of<br />
obsolete matter, material is put back into a cycle of use. In Baker-Brown’s (2017)<br />
words this is ‘mining the anthropocene’ or ‘urban mining’- the creation of a circular<br />
material economy through waste. With regards to resource consumption<br />
the building and construction industry is the industrial economy’s biggest consumer<br />
of material resources, and the biggest producer of waste. Therefore this<br />
process of reuse and a consideration of the whole lifecycle of materials redistributes<br />
values and challenges a linear industrial economy. As a result there was<br />
an important ethical dimension to this work (Fox, 2000), one that resonates with<br />
work on political ecology, degrowth (D’Alisa et al., 2014; Oslo Architecture Trienalle,<br />
2019) and scarcity (Till, 2014). This work challenges the hegemony of economic<br />
growth, suggesting that there are also ecological limits to this. Through<br />
a process of ‘urban mining’, improvisation and reuse (through the creation of<br />
a flexible and adaptable design system), <strong>Gathering</strong> draws attention to material<br />
limits in particular, and explores how, through processes of improvisation,<br />
these limits can offer both aesthetic and use value in art and architecture production,<br />
where issues of waste are particularly pertinent.<br />
Reused sheet material for flooring, marked<br />
out prior to painting, photo: authors<br />
11
<strong>Gathering</strong>, occupied grottoes, February 2019, photo:<br />
Matthew Pickering<br />
12
13
Research and Making Process<br />
Relations between Art & Architecture<br />
Our process emerged from a shared interest in the relationship between art<br />
and architecture. We sought to explore the commonalities in our approach to<br />
making and specifically how experimentation and improvisation (often seen in<br />
more strictly defined terms in architecture) are central to both our approaches.<br />
Our approach to collaboration was built upon a common ground of dissatisfaction<br />
with the traditional, object-based approach to architectural design and<br />
construction (what Ingold (2010) refers to as the ‘hylomorphic schema’), that<br />
privileges the architectural object as preformed idea over that of process. Finding<br />
this common ground, we sought to discuss and develop a process of making/<br />
design that would allow for improvisational methods of working. We sought<br />
to expand the studio-based practice of design-through-making, working on 1:1<br />
scale prototypes and assemblies in a way that we considered not separate from<br />
the making of the installation itself.<br />
As a result we developed an approach that saw the installation as a point in<br />
time of a process of gleaning, testing, playing, assembly, use, disassembly and<br />
reuse of the material. We committed to follow the possibilities of found materials,<br />
adapting and evolving our initial ideas as new processes were found and<br />
new aesthetics conceived, thereby using these processes to fundamentally shape<br />
the forms and spaces that emerged.<br />
‘To improvise is to follow the ways of the world, as they open up, rather<br />
than to recover a chain of connections, from an end-point to a starting-<br />
point, on a route already travelled.’ (Ingold, 2010, p.97)<br />
Our interests in material use and waste led to a form of ‘gleaning’ of our immediate<br />
environment. Looking to glean the leftover scraps of timber, metal, fabric,<br />
etc., following the university’s end of year degree shows, and from local construction<br />
sites, we committed ourselves to a process of material improvisation<br />
and play from what we could find.<br />
14
Collaborative Conversations<br />
The brief from Madeleine Kennedy allowed us early on to engage with the artists<br />
involved in eventually occupying and inhabiting the grottoes. Each artist,<br />
working with their chosen figure from collage practice, had a set of ideas for<br />
manifesting their own practice in the structure we were proposing. Through beginning<br />
conversations with the artists, and exchanging sketch proposals for general<br />
layouts and forms, the specifics of the grottoes’ scale and scope for acting as<br />
a host for new works was developed. We were careful to allow time and space<br />
for both the very specific technical requirements of some installations (a need to<br />
keep a highly valuable original Schwitters collage in view of security cameras,<br />
for instance in Heather Ross’s installation) and the need for more flexible forms<br />
to respond to evolving works from the artists (eventual sheltered and enclosing<br />
spaces for intimate tattoos from Marian Cassy) in our initial conversations and<br />
subsequent emergent spaces and forms.<br />
Working with the artists through these close dialogues and in a non-linear form<br />
of design development afforded us the opportunity to carefully shape the structure<br />
around the needs and desires of the artists in relation to the qualities and capacities<br />
of the materials found. We would listen to and hear the artists’ needs, and<br />
return to them following a dialogue with the technical and formal possibilities of<br />
the materials we found. This allowed us to have a design process that was in a state<br />
of emergence throughout the project, as some of the artists responded to the space<br />
in different and unexpected ways following its construction (Jackie Haynes, for<br />
instance, occupied a space that was initially a fallow void in the structure, but that<br />
through Haynes’ engagement with the project became a carefully finished nook<br />
between grottoes that would hold collaboratively made sculptures).<br />
Drawing<br />
We began the development process for the structure through an exchange of<br />
drawn ideas, initially asking questions of form and organisation of space within<br />
the traditional exhibition format; how we might draw on the improvisational,<br />
collage practice of Schwitters; and the articulation of small- and medium-scale<br />
spaces to ‘explode’ the gallery environment. Our explorations looked at how we<br />
could use light and shade, openness and enclosure, to create a range of ‘holding<br />
spaces’ that would afford invited artists opportunities to take over and inhabit<br />
the structure through their practices.<br />
15
Initial drawing exploring light and dark spaces and<br />
enclosures, pen and ink, scan: authors<br />
16
Development of the planning of grottoes, pen<br />
drawing, scan: authors<br />
17
Initial drawing exploring light and dark spaces and<br />
enclosures, pen and ink, scan: authors<br />
Development of the planning of grottoes, pen<br />
drawing, scan: authors<br />
18
In parallel to our gleaning (which went on throughout the process of development<br />
and construction), we began a prototyping process in the school’s workshop,<br />
drawing again on leftover sheet metal, salvaged pallet timber sections,<br />
found and borrowed screws, bolts and nuts. Based on a loose design of a skeletal<br />
structure of vertical armatures, connected together through horizontal jointing<br />
elements, we experimented with junctions that would be capable of holding<br />
timber sheet cladding or fabric enclosures. These armatures emerged through<br />
playful testing of the flexibility and stability of various types of junction and<br />
thickness of material, leading to a junction that allowed for three-dimensional<br />
movement and that could be disassembled with ease, allowing for an improvisational<br />
approach to the assembly of variegated scales of grottoes.<br />
Collaboration and Prototyping<br />
This prototyping led to the development of a joint that could be repeated across<br />
the structure, allowing formal variation across the installation, and permitting<br />
us to test out a variety of layouts in the studio environment.<br />
After refining the junction - exploring plate thickness and bending moments -<br />
we began digitally modelling the junction and plasma cutting and testing the<br />
junction’s performance as a flexible unit. The modelling and plasma cutting enabled<br />
us to experiment and improvise in almost real time with the metal, making<br />
minor modifications to bolt holes, angles and fixing plate positions in the software<br />
and then cutting multiple iterations in rapid succession.<br />
This ‘itinerative’ (Ingold, 2010) improvisational approach formed the basic pattern<br />
of working throughout the project, taking material elements, forming and<br />
shaping them in real time, and exploring their relationship to the forms and<br />
enclosures we aimed to create. Once a core junction type had been defined, we<br />
were able to fabricate the first 150 plus units on the plasma cutter, sending the<br />
remaining 100 plus units for rapid laser-cutting off-site.<br />
The joint, then, became the centre of the improvisational approach, allowing<br />
for the material conjunctions that occurred, and for the informal geometries<br />
that emerged. This allowed a form of inhabitation and use that afforded multiple<br />
and unexpected opportunities for the invited artists to occupy the structure<br />
in curious, adhoc and improvisational manners (see L-INK installation, Jackie<br />
Haynes, Marian Cassy et al.).<br />
19
The ‘arms’ for each frame could be adjusted to make the whole higher or wider,<br />
depending on the artwork being presented. The design of the metal armature<br />
which was sandwiched between the lengths of wood, allowed for this, through<br />
a series of holes into which the bolts could be fixed. This design also meant that<br />
each arm was fully retractable, making them easy to transport.<br />
The digital fabrication of the junctions allowed for modifications during the<br />
protoyping phase to be structurally tested at 1:1 and refined. The resulting form<br />
allowed the reclaimed timber sections to become malleable during the installation<br />
phase.<br />
Detail of <strong>Gathering</strong> armature, photo: Jack Cornish<br />
20
Detail of <strong>Gathering</strong> armature, photo: Jack Cornish<br />
21
An Itinerant Practice<br />
Ingold speaks of itineration - the walking through the world as a process of<br />
putting ideas, things and materials together as an artistic, improvisational practice.<br />
This describes well our process of working - quite literally walking through<br />
and around the university campus, adjacent building sites and waste recycling<br />
yards, gleaning the by-products of others’ making processes. We were itinerant<br />
makers across our workshops and studios, moving between the prototyping<br />
space of the architecture workshop with its laser-cutters and handsaws, and the<br />
metal workshop with its plasma cutters, sheet benders and guillotines. We were<br />
driven by the material properties of the things we found, as well as the processes<br />
with which we experimented. We made our way through that ‘taskscape’ that<br />
Ingold speaks of, without following an object prefigured in our minds, but rather<br />
allowing the structure and form to emerge through this chance and playful<br />
process. Taskscape becomes a useful category to describe the environment of<br />
making, the term referring to ‘an array of related activities’ that is navigated<br />
and experienced much as a landscape, being ‘qualitative and heterogeneous’ as<br />
Ingold describes it. (Ingold, 1993)<br />
Central to our approach was a resistance to the prefigured - the hylomorphic -<br />
and a desire to allow things considered as ‘waste’ to have other lives and define<br />
other forms. We aimed to consider the work not as an artistic or architectural<br />
object - ‘finished’ and ‘completed’ at a point in time where the gallery dictated<br />
the show ‘open’ - but as an inherently unfinished project. The curatorial brief<br />
developed by Madeline Kennedy allowed for this process-oriented approach to<br />
the installation, seeing it as a site that would come alive throughout the fourmonth<br />
duration of the exhibition as invited artists, guests and visitors installed,<br />
performed and contributed to the life of the structure. Speaking of painting, but<br />
equally applicable to the conventional architectural object, Ingold suggests a<br />
misreading of the process of making, whereby artistic ‘intentions’ are privileged<br />
over the potentials and possibilities latent in the material and the artist’s practices.<br />
(Ingold, 2009)<br />
We sought to allow the ‘finished’ object (if there is such a thing) to be an index<br />
of its making. The articulation of the jointing and armatures, the exposed fixings<br />
and the pencils marks, cut lines, machining patterns and exposed jointing of the<br />
flooring allowed the artwork to express both its making and the possibility of<br />
unmaking latent in its structure.<br />
22
‘Artists—as also artisans—are itinerant wayfarers. They make<br />
their way through the taskscape [...] as do walkers through the<br />
landscape, bringing forth their work as they press on with their<br />
own lives. It is in this very forward movement that the creativity<br />
of the work is to be found. To read creativity “forwards” entails a<br />
focus not on abduction but on improvisation.’<br />
(Ingold and Hallam, 2007, p. 3).’ (Ingold, 2010)<br />
Julia Heslop operates the plasma cutting machine,<br />
Fine Art workshop, photo: authors<br />
23
Prototype foot, photo: authors<br />
Plasma cutter enables efficent use of sheet material. Junction elements<br />
in process of production, photo: authors<br />
24
Unfinished Objects and Spaces<br />
We gathered pallets and plywood sheet, MDF and chipboard, in order to form a<br />
solid flooring base from which to build. Assembling these found objects in the<br />
studio environment (working at a 1:1 scale, developing and making the installation<br />
in its first incarnation), allowed us to bring together the components of the<br />
armatures, the footings and the floor in a process of experimental space making.<br />
Driven by conversations with the invited artists, we crafted the grottoes in<br />
response to their individual practices, ensuring routes through the spaces that<br />
would accommodate a range of mobilities, from ambulant to wheelchair users,<br />
whilst allowing for intimacy and spatial differentiation within the grottoes.<br />
Immersive and Intimate Spaces<br />
Our interest in the materiality of the aesthetic experience was reflected in<br />
how we used light, shade and enclosure. Working with found sheet material<br />
and semi-translucent fabric allowed us to alternate dense enclosures with<br />
more diaphanous, light grottoes. Organic, fair-trade cotton, cut and sewn into<br />
cocoon-like forms, was hung from the universal junctions of the armatures,<br />
delineating and articulating dense and lightweight spaces through materials.<br />
In direct contrast to traditional gallery walls, we provided light, fabric surfaces<br />
and inclined timber planes for artists to respond to. These at once afforded artists<br />
opportunities to use gallery surfaces in unconventional manners, and encouraged<br />
a viewer experience that was immersive and surrounding - you enter<br />
into the space of the artworks and performances, invited and welcomed into the<br />
interiors of the grottoes. Furthermore, participants and visitors were actively<br />
encouraged to immerse themselves within the curatorial programme - not just<br />
static observers, but intimates with the work itself.<br />
Pallets and sheet material for flooring, studio,<br />
photos: authors<br />
25
Creating a series of intimate spaces within the installation was crucial - drawing<br />
on Schwitters’ manner of accommodating and holding artworks within his<br />
MerzBau, and also a desire to produce both a functional and emotive environment.<br />
In terms of the function, fundamental to the brief was the creation of a<br />
central ‘forum’ space, where visitors, artists and participants could gather to<br />
take part in workshops, talks and performances.<br />
Improvisational Geometries<br />
Developing the installation through improvisation in the studio environment<br />
first allowed us to move, open out and form the structure around potential activities<br />
and uses, whilst not overly delineating the use of the spaces. Therefore<br />
our approach was not about prefiguration but working in a site-responsive way,<br />
responding to the wider gallery context. Deliberately avoiding formal geometries<br />
became both an expression of our making process as well as of the spatial<br />
type we were employing - grottoes, nests, nooks - which became our ‘holding’<br />
spaces (Donald Winnicott (1960) a therapeutic term, but one that carries over<br />
into the idea of spaces that can hold, nurture and contain in an active form).<br />
Grotto frames, studio, photo: authors<br />
26
Hatton Install<br />
Following prototyping and development in the studio, the structure was disassembled<br />
and carried to the Hatton Gallery, where the process of installation<br />
lasted two weeks, working with Jemma Hind as our technical support, and the<br />
team of the Hatton Gallery. Pre-assembly in the studio enabled a rapid installation<br />
process in the gallery space.<br />
Frames being installed in the Hatton Gallery,<br />
photo: authors<br />
27
From Use to Reuse<br />
When the installation closed in February 2019, we documented and deinstalled<br />
the work. Over a period of four days, the process of dismantling was opened<br />
to view by visitors, and simultaneously scanned with LiDAR (laser scanner)<br />
technology. Recording each key stage of disassembly, artists were initially invited<br />
to be recorded taking down their work, producing a digital archive of the<br />
process of removing the interventions within the structure, and subsequently<br />
the dismantling of the cladding, armatures and flooring was recorded through<br />
the laser scans. The timber from the armatures was salvaged by Julia for use in<br />
future artworks; the steel plating within the joints was partially sent for metal<br />
recycling, used as weld-testing pieces in the architecture workshop, and stored<br />
for future use; the cloth salvaged for future artworks; and the pallets and flooring<br />
collected by Newcastle Wood Recycling Yard – a local charity. No elements<br />
of the installation were sent to landfill, the majority of the structure going on to<br />
have another life.<br />
LiDAR scanning in progress, February 2019,<br />
photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
28
<strong>Gathering</strong> Lives<br />
The LiDAR scan has now been assembled by graduate students Josie Foster and<br />
Sarah Hollywell into a set of archival models of the installation/deinstallation.<br />
These found a life in an immersive digital installation in the School of Architecture<br />
in January 2020 - effectively the third life of the <strong>Gathering</strong> structure. Its<br />
first life - in the studios of the School of Architecture - lasted approximately two<br />
months, from July to September 2018, until it moved on to its second, occupied<br />
life in the Hatton Gallery until February 2019. Its fragments are now living their<br />
own object lives elsewhere, perhaps incorporated into other artworks; perhaps<br />
forming the structure of a seat somewhere; or wrapping another artwork in a<br />
fabric embrace. What we see is the expanded lives of this work - an evocation of<br />
the temporal, changing and never-really-static states of an artwork in process.<br />
LiDAR scan of the process of deinstallation, Hatton Gallery,<br />
image: Josie Foster & Sarah Hollywell<br />
29
Outcomes and Dissemination<br />
<strong>Gathering</strong> was a central part of the wider Exploding Collage exhibition at the<br />
Hatton Gallery which attracted 8784 visitors between October 2018 and February<br />
2019. The installation hosted a series of eight artist interventions during<br />
the exhibition through performance, video and projection and drawing/collage/painting.<br />
These worked to ‘activate’ the structure, calling into action the<br />
material and formal design properties of the grottoes. The overview of these<br />
interventions can be seen at https://hattongallery.org.uk/gathering-so-far, and<br />
is discussed as part of an interview with curator Madeline Kennedy in Aesthetica<br />
Magazine https://aestheticamagazine.com/expansive-presentations. During<br />
the exhibition, two seminars were convened, to discuss the curatorial position<br />
behind the Exploding Collage/<strong>Gathering</strong> exhibition and the design and construction<br />
of <strong>Gathering</strong>. Furthermore, a digital legacy in the form of an archive<br />
of LiDAR scans now exists, held by Newcastle University and the Hatton Gallery,<br />
with a soon to be online digital model of the installation and the process of its<br />
deinstallation.<br />
A version of this portfolio has been available since 2020 at https://www.ncl.<br />
ac.uk/apl/research/case-studies/creativepractice/<br />
View into grottoe, with work of Marian Casey in the foreground,<br />
and L-INK in the rear grottoe, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
30
Working between Art & Architecture<br />
The work demonstrated that through a purposeful yet improvised process of<br />
rescue and reuse, materials can be ‘made good’, refined and reimagined. The<br />
focus on designing and making through an embedded studio process of testing<br />
and improvising highlights the valuable nature of art-architecture collaborations<br />
in solving design challenges. Through this, the work challenges the<br />
way that materials are valued in art and architecture projects, highlighting<br />
the amount of waste usually produced. This provides a framework for further<br />
art-architecture projects and exhibitions.<br />
Through the close collaboration with both artists involved in the curated programme,<br />
and the following through of the potentials of materials gathered, we<br />
have established a method for developing an alternative to prefigured gallery<br />
installations. The available materials ‘gleaned’ from around the campus and<br />
city, in relation to the practices of the involved artists, led to a method whereby<br />
ideas and materials came into close conjuction - a form of material, technical<br />
and programmatic improvisation. These ideas - gleaning from site, collaborative<br />
conversations, technical development through improvised prototyping - are<br />
informative to developing an ecological architectural practice. What materials<br />
are immediately available; how they can be reponded to through fluid ideas and<br />
programmatic constraints; what their technical capacity offers a design; how<br />
their adhoc combination creates a site-specific form and aesthetic: these design<br />
parameters combined offer an orginal way of initiating and developing an<br />
architectural project outside of the gallery setting. They will form the basis for a<br />
research-led creative-practice project exploring retrofit and refurbishment in a<br />
residential setting.<br />
An Ecological Material Practice<br />
The wider role of the project - communicated through the artefact itself, as<br />
well as the seminars and tours (with graduate architecture students, staff and<br />
architectural visitors) has been to establish a new mode of design for times of<br />
material abundance and economic scarcity: an ecological design method that eschews<br />
the technical paradigm of ‘sustainable’ design for malleable, responsive,<br />
improvised tectonics and aesthetics. This has already been seen to be influential<br />
in postgraduate level research (a related PhD is in the process of application),<br />
architectural practice for Heslop & Wainwright, and through the responsive and<br />
ongoing work of artists (see the practice of Jackie Haynes, grotto for Mina Loy).<br />
The design framework will now be developed in a live-build project in<br />
Newcastle’s West End district of Elswick.<br />
31
Sustaining a legacy of practice<br />
As part of the Exploding Collage programme, <strong>Gathering</strong> sits within a legacy of<br />
exhibitions at the Hatton Gallery led by ‘live’ on-site practice. As well as hosting<br />
the internationally significant Merz Barn wall from Schwitters, the Hatton’s<br />
historical legacy (which dates to the 1830s and the establishment of a school<br />
of art in Newcastle) is one of radical spatial art practices. Under the tenure of<br />
Robin Darwin, the Hatton Gallery was used by artists including Victor Pasmore<br />
and Richard Hamilton to develop the historically significant works Man, Machine<br />
and Motion, and An Exhibit. Both of these used the gallery space itself as a<br />
testing ground for new modalities of art practice: exploding the pictorial frame;<br />
using architectural elements and spatial conditions to explore changing social<br />
and cultural themes.<br />
Our work sits within this context and contributes to the ‘living’ and vital culture<br />
of arts practice within the gallery setting. Documentation of the structure is now<br />
in the Hatton archive, and digital reproductions of the installation are in development<br />
as an online archival resource. <strong>Gathering</strong> contributes to this significant<br />
historical legacy, itself responding to a period of rapid social change, setting a<br />
scene for ongoing work around material use, climate crisis and the role of the<br />
architect and artist.<br />
An Exhibit, Hatton Gallery, image:<br />
Newcastle University<br />
Man, Machine & Motion, Hatton Gallery, image:<br />
The Independent Group<br />
32
Frames being installed in the Hatton Gallery, with Julia Heslop<br />
Jemma Hind and Ed Robinson (technical support),<br />
photo: authors<br />
33
<strong>Gathering</strong> (detail), 2018, Julia Heslop & Ed Wainwright. Courtesy the artists. Photograph Jack Cornish.<br />
<strong>Gathering</strong><br />
An architectural intervention by collaborators<br />
Julia Heslop & Ed Wainwright.<br />
29 September – 16 February 2019<br />
Free entry, donations welcome<br />
Mon - Sat, 10am - 5pm<br />
hattongallery.org.uk<br />
Hatton Gallery, Kings Road, Newcastle<br />
University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU<br />
Exhibition poster, Hatton Gallery, Tyne & Wear Museums and<br />
Archives design team<br />
34
Jemma Hind & Julia Heslop, <strong>Gathering</strong> opening, photo:<br />
Ed Wainwright<br />
35
Anka Schmid intervention, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
36
37
Heather Ross intervention, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
38
39
Mani Kambo intervention, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
40
41
Sonia Allori, Ruth Hemus & Vaia Paziana intervention, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
42
43
Jackie Haynes intervention, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
44
45
Armatures and junctions, with working drawings visible, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
46
47
Jackie Haynes intervention, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
48
49
Structure following deinstallation, photo: Matthew Pickering<br />
50
51
In a curator statement about <strong>Gathering</strong> Kennedy wrote:<br />
Testimonials<br />
‘Their approach to the commission demonstrated generosity and forethought<br />
in designing a space that would accommodate and enable a diversity of<br />
artistic media, as well as operate as a welcoming site where audiences could<br />
gather and undertake activities collectively. The success of <strong>Gathering</strong> was<br />
evidenced by its accessibility, usability and adaptability. It balanced two<br />
qualities often treated as mutually exclusive in the presentation of artworks<br />
in museums: an expertly crafted, interesting and novel spatial design (as<br />
opposed to a white cube or traditional hang), that safely houses and does<br />
not overshadow the oftentimes fragile, high-value, autonomous artworks it<br />
presents. As such, <strong>Gathering</strong> captured the spirit of the work by Schwitters<br />
without being at all derivative’.<br />
Contributing artist and arts educator Zoe Allen, wrote on the L-INK intervention:<br />
‘L-INK made their intervention into <strong>Gathering</strong> on 2nd February. The group<br />
spent several weeks researching the work of New York Dadaist Elsa von<br />
Freytag-Loringhoven (also known as ‘the Baroness’). They worked with artist<br />
Heather Ross who invited them to consider the language of different objects,<br />
with reference to Schwitters’ ideas around collage, and Dada making & editing<br />
techniques.<br />
Their research and discussions focused on gender & LGBTQ+ issues, feminism<br />
and what that is/means today, national & cultural identity, and artworks<br />
& rituals associated with ‘making’ or with other aspects of our identities<br />
outside of being an artist. They have also explored the role of men and<br />
women generally in society, in art and within the family.<br />
The group’s intervention explored the theme of ‘bravery’, inspired by the life<br />
and work of the Baroness. Each group member contributed to <strong>Gathering</strong><br />
their own artwork and objects which held personal significance to them.<br />
During their intervention, members of the public were invited to add objects<br />
of their own or alter items within L-INK’s grotto. Thirty-five people attended<br />
their event and contributed to their intervention.’<br />
52
Tess Deman-Cleaver, artist and writer, comments on her involvement in the<br />
programme:<br />
“I responded to the “shrine-like” structure of the space I was given within the<br />
gallery, creating a piece that was in part homage to Gertrude Stein, whose<br />
language gathers ideas and sounds via associative and subjective meaning<br />
and who has greatly influenced collage practices within contemporary art.<br />
The shrine being a place for collecting, or gathering, votive offerings and<br />
thoughts. The text I wrote for the exhibition, presented as performance and<br />
sound installation, also responded to the institutional context of the show<br />
and became an important opportunity for me as an artist to explore a more<br />
overtly personal and political voice within my work. My use of a 1930s radio,<br />
contemporary in its design to the writings of Stein, grew out of an interest in<br />
how communications technology affects language, literary experimentation<br />
and landscape by “gathering” disparate content in a manner articulated by<br />
Heidegger in his theory of “things”. The work I created for <strong>Gathering</strong> continues<br />
to inform my practice and ideas within this work have evolved and been<br />
included in subsequent projects.’<br />
Mani Kambo, the final artist in the programme to develop work in <strong>Gathering</strong>,<br />
writes:<br />
‘I was the last artist/researcher to work in the space after various individuals<br />
had left their mark one at a time seeing each space filled over time. Each very<br />
different to the next yet the link of the structure [held] them all together in<br />
place as one.<br />
During the creation of the work, having people visit through the process of<br />
creating was different to the usual way artwork is created: usually isolated<br />
in a space detached from where the work will sit then brought into the space.<br />
I worked in a compulsive way during the creation of the work in the grotto<br />
which was a different to my usual methods of creation. The immediacy of<br />
pasting up an image and then another and layering each on top of the next<br />
and linking sections with tape. I took into consideration the space, as mine<br />
had solid boards that could be pasted across rather than beams and fabric so<br />
I focused on a more 2D collaged grotto.<br />
53
I worked with the structure of the grotto through collaging my own imagery<br />
of my own previous work, taking still elements from prints and films<br />
and re-imaging them in the space to tell a new story. Taking influence from<br />
Claude Cahun, her work acts like a “hunt” through her text, imagery and<br />
photography: all that is revealed and given, much is still hidden or has been<br />
lost.<br />
The Re<strong>Gathering</strong> event was great to bring back to life the structure of the<br />
grottos and explore them after a period of time. Like a relic lost in time<br />
you’re re-discovering and remembering. The fact that the grottos could then<br />
be re-exhibited and shared in another space is fascinating through projection<br />
or even possibly online.’<br />
54
Bibliography<br />
Baker-Brown, D. (2017) The Re-Use Atlas: A Designer’s Guide Towards the<br />
Circular Economy, London: RIBA<br />
D’Alisa, G., Demaria, F. and Kallis, G. (eds.) (2014) Degrowth: a vocabulary<br />
for a new era, Oxon: Routledge<br />
Fox, W. (ed.) (2012) Ethics and the built environment, Oxon: Routledge<br />
Ingold, T. (1993) ‘The temporality of the landscape’, World Archaeology,<br />
25(2), pp.152-174<br />
Ingold, T. (2010) ‘The textility of making’, Cambridge Journal of Economics,<br />
34(1), pp. 91-102<br />
Jencks, C., and Silver, N. (2013 [1972]) Adhocism: the case for improvisation,<br />
Cambridge: Mit Press<br />
Till, J. (2014) ‘Scarcity and agency’, Journal of Architectural Education,<br />
68(1), pp. 9-11<br />
Winnicott, D.W. (1960) ‘The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship’, The<br />
International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41, pp. 585-595<br />
55