Emma Smith

December 2011: ∆E =W at Tate Modern

artistemmasmith — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:01:56 +0000

November 2011: Community Without Propinquity at MK Gallery

artistemmasmith — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:59:05 +0000

Exhibition: October 6 to November 27.

Community without Propinquity* is a project exploring the roles of contemporary art and communities in New Towns across the globe. The project included an exhibition, a video programme, six new artist’s commissions, a research laboratory, publication and symposium on the 26 November.

I was commissioned to make a new piece of work for performance on the 26th November. The work is a short play called ‘Community’ that is based on a series of interviews and research into the policy, strategy and delivery of community in Milton Keynes. The play is 4 acts long and is to be enacted without announcment during a social occassion within the gallery. Written for a solo actor the protagonist enacts the work through conversation with people, embodying the perfect community member as constructed through city planning doctrine.

This work was performed at MK gallery on 26th November by professional actor John Jack.

November 2011: Department of Overlooked Histories

artistemmasmith — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:48:45 +0000

September 2011: PLAYBACK in Latvia

artistemmasmith — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:46:35 +0000

July 2011: The School For Tourists at Grizedale Arts

artistemmasmith — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:37:43 +0000

June 2011: PLAYBACK at The Showroom

artistemmasmith — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:35:07 +0000

Exhibition Opens 21st June and continues until 30th July.

January 2011: Residency at Kuona Trust, Kenya

artistemmasmith — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:31:00 +0000

September 2010: Artist Fellowship at The Showroom

artistemmasmith — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 10:21:28 +0000

For the last 5 months I have been co-ordinating the pilot phase of the Communal Knowledge programme at The Showroom gallery, a new programme that aims to develop a collaborative body of knowledge on local issues and to re-think established norms, values, codes, roles and relations within the locality. Working on projects with Dutch artist Mieke van de Voort and Ricardo Basbaum, from Brazil, the pilot phase concluded this month with an exhibition of both artist’s work at the gallery. This opened with a pannel discussion between Sophie Hope and I, Mieke and Ricardo, exploring the nature of both projects. The discussion questioned the gallery as a problematic site for radical action in its framing of the work as perfromative, explored the terminology and illusory constructions of ‘collaboration’ and questioned heirarchies and agendas of empowerment.

Leading on from this programme and by means of further developing the research that this has entailed I am now commencing a one year fellowship with The Showroom to produce new work, programme a series of discursive events and develop research. The work will explore the relation of gallery to place through research, pedagogy and practice developing processes that mobilise froms of tacit knowledge held within the neighbourhood.

September 2010: Waterbeach Artist in Residence

artistemmasmith — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 19:27:13 +0000

This month I begin a two year residency in the village of Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire. Commissioned by the Waterbeach Cultural Collective the residency is to curate and deliver a programme of activity in collaboration with local partners.

Through this project I wish to explore the location of art in society, its function, role and value, looking at collaborative forms of production and processes inherant in the every day.

July – August 2010: Grizedale Arts Residency

artistemmasmith — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 19:10:57 +0000

Hedge Cutting at Yewfield

For two weeks in July and two in August, I have been working on the research phase of a residency at Grizedale Arts. The work I have been developing looks at the connectivity of people to place, what happens to a sense of community, ownership, responsibility and belonging in an environment so heavily populated by a transient tourist population? What is the relationship between the ‘tourist’ population and ‘resident’ and what meachanisms might enable a more meaningful, collaborative and contributive experience of place?

As part of my reseach process I have been investigating existing models of contributive tourism in the Lake District including the Woofing Scheme and National Trust Working Holidays. Through active engagement in these schemes, having cut hedges, practiced my topiary, cleared pathways, built a footpath and landscaped a fell, I have been exploring the potential usefulness of being a visitor as well as the limitations of voluntary unskilled labour.

Through this work I wish to explore the role of the artist in relation to what is useful, who defines what usefulness is, and to place in question a process of amateur contribution through response and understanding of site to the contribution of undemanded but professionalised expertise.

This research will lead on to a performative Tourist Training Camp, I am currently developing, to be hosted by Lawson Park in 2011 to train ‘super tourists’ and to match make incoming skill sets with local demand.