ASSEMBLY by Alexandra Hughes
Collaboration / commissioned funded project (works in response / cross-disciplinary exhibition and performative symposium). 2017 – 2018
Baltic 39 (WOON Studios)

Assembly – staged constructions and live event

“Alexandra Hughes constructs immersive situations, approaching the photograph as a mutable image and physical material. She initiated the project Assembly by inviting a cross-disciplinary group of people to physically assemble one of her artworks, allowing this haptic process to produce a response manifest in each individual’s own respective practices. For. this event Hughes reassembles the artwork with this new collaborative overlay and network that explres the physical and material act of ‘encountering’ and ‘doing’, where unexpected thoughts and bodily gestures arise through a live installation of objects, images, dance, sound, spoken word and text.”

“The performative symposium will aim to take an informal but rigorous approach to discussions. There will be performative lectures as well as conversations between the contributors to the project and student audience. The focus of the day will include on topics of new materialism, the experiential turn, photography in contemporary fine art, notions of knowledge and the visceral, the scope of creative practice-based PhD methodologies, the potential of art and science to generate new knowledge together as well as any other related topics that may arise.”

Assembly – invitation (except)

“The project Assesmbly begins with me sending you a set of materials, including a bag of clay, poles and a photograph, along with instructions on how to assemble. After which, I will ask you to photograph the piece in-situ and then to make a response in any medium (including text). From this, the material is to be sent back to me and the resulting response will sit alongside a set of invited responses to be presented and discussed at a public event.”

“To re-iterate the intention of the project, as, to privilege practice and co-actions with material, to explore and discover the nuanced affective qualities of material on our thoughts and bodily gestures.”

Summary:
Collaborative project funded by Northumbria-Sunderland AHRC / working remotely and in-person / public programme with live events / working with artists and a cultural institution

Artists:
Ben Anderson
Dawn Bothwell
Luce Choules
Fiona Crisp
Material Chorus (Ditte Goard)
Carol Mavor
Tim Rubidge
James Watts

Organiser:
Alexandra Hughes

Project partner:
Baltic 39 (WOON Studios) Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Keywords:
Environmental Art, Curated Landscapes, Live Events, Fieldwork.

Funded by:
Northumbria-Sunderland AHRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Art and Design, UK

Performative symposium:
Intro Assembly – Alexandra Hughes
Panel 1 Visceral Energy: Material Bodies – Tim Rubridge / James Watts
Panel 2 Encountering Environments, Encountering Photography – Fiona Crisp / Luce Choules
Panel 3 Story Telling: Symbolic Language – Carol Mavor / Dawn Bothwell / Ditte Goard

Links:
Link to Letting Things be Uncertain on Alexandra Hughes’ website

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WORKS

Response to Alexandra Hughes’ (re)construction, 2017

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Arboreal Journey, mapping publication, 2018