POLAR EXPEDITIONS

16.01.2010 – 15.05.2010
vernissage: 16.01.2010, 18.00
curators: Geert Verbeke, Simon Delobel

The Verbeke Foundation organises an exhibition on actual and fictitious polar expeditions from Januari 16th 2010 to May 15th 2010.

The exhibition also probes for the motives of artists who head for the North and South Poles: out of a fascination for the unknown, a desire to exploit new terrains for their art, an ecological conviction or a romantic sense of adventure?

The historic archives of the Belgian South Pole expeditions which were organised during the 1950’s to perform scientific experiments on terrestrial magnetism form the basis of the exposition. These archives will be used by Belgian artists to realize new installations. In this manner the exposition fits in with one of the recurrent themes of the Verbeke Foundation: the relation between art and science.

Artists:
Waldo Bien (NL)
Phil Bloom (NL)
Anne Brodie (UK)
Caroline Coolen (B)
Diego Franssens (B)
Valery Grancher (F)
Roel Jacobs (B)
Tom Liekens (B)
London Fieldworks (Bruce Gilchrist & Jo Joelson) (UK)
Didier Mahieu en Zoubeir Ben Hmouda(B)
Raphael Opstaele (B)
Andrea Polli (US)
Catherine Rannou (F)
Johan Terryn (B)
Nathalie Talec (F)
Laurent Tixador (F)
Edwig Van Cauteren (B)
Jason van der Woude (NL), Tom Staes (B) en Bart Dirix (B)
Didier Volckaert (B)

Parallel projects:
Geoffrey De Beer (B)
Michèle Matyn (B)
Philippe Samyn (B)
Martin uit den Bogaard (NL)
Koen Vanmechelen (B)
Niko Van Stichel (B)

Photo booth installation at the Old Operating Theatre

Glass installation at the Old Operating Theatre

see http://www.tumblr.com for more details of the double sited temporary installation at the Old Operating Theatre Museum

Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret

9a St Thomas St

London SE1 9R1

www.thegarret.org.uk

Bioluminescent bacteria are widely used in scientific research, usually as internal markers. By inverting this practice and employing bacteria as an external light source, objects and bodies, surfaces and skin are exposed to the soft ethereal glow of the bacteria, establishing new points of contact and visual punctures. What is usually seen under the lens of the microscope is here the source of light that reveals the features of human bodies and enters the world of domesticity.

(Un)Inhabitable? Art of Extreme Environments

Maison Européenne de la Photographie.
5-7, Rue de Fourcy, 75004 Paris.
Metro: Saint Paul or Pont Marie

September 9 – October 11 2009
Wednesday – Sunday / 11 am-8 pm

www.art-outsiders.com

“(Un)Inhabitable? – Art of Extreme Environments” presents works that explore the meaning of living in extreme environments, in the imaginary realm as well as in the physical one, in the political, social and environmental fields as well as in the poetic ones. The 2009 edition of the @rt Outsiders Festival —celebrating this year its tenth anniversary—focuses on extreme environments.

These are environments that were, until recently, uninhabited by human beings and that contemporary science and technology turn into “inhabitable” places (Antarctica, underwater world, outer space, deserts); but also those that are becoming “uninhabitable” due to the impacts of our way of life (pollution, technological accidents, economical pressures and global warming).

Artists :
Howard Boland & Laura Cinti ; Anne Brodie ; Peter Cusack ; Stephen Eastaugh ; Shiro Matsui ; Connie Mendoza ; Hu Jie Ming ; Forrest Myers ; Lucy + Jorge Orta ; Bradley Pitts ; Andrea Polli ; Catherine Rannou ; Ana Rewakowicz ; Yang Yi.

Curators :
Jean-Luc Soret, artistic director of the @rt Outsiders Festival.
Annick Bureaud, theoretician and art critic, director of Leonardo/Olats.

Press :
Yannick Le Guillanton
Tel : ++ 33/1 44 78 75 20
E-Mail : le.guillanton [@] art-outsiders.com

Installing ' Antarctica, a choice?'

'Antarctica - a choice?' Paris 2009

'Antarctica - a choice?'

'Antarctica - a choice?' detail

‘Exploring the Invisible’ is a current Wellcome funded project that will culminate in a temporary site specific installation at the Old Operating Theatre in London Bridge. Click on http://bioproject.tumblr.com/ to view recent images and video outcomes of this collaborative project, and Wellcome Library to read about the project as July’s item of the month.

The Ice House, Helmsdale’s monumental deep freeze. Once a store for salmon catch, later a coal fired fish and chip shop. TimeSpan’s artist in residence and youth arts curator Ruth Macdougall has commissioned Chilean video artist Yael Rosenblut and myself to research and respond to the Ice House. The resulting work will constitute a double sited installation inside the ice house and in Timespan Gallery from 4July to 2nd Aug 2009. Read Scottish Art critic  Giles Sutherland’s review of the exhibition.

'Sandy' installed in the Ice house. Photo Ruth McDougall

'archive1' fingernails and bone

'archive2' lightbox and paper print detail

'Smokehouse' video still1

'Smokehouse' video still2

'Smokehouse' video still3

'paper projection'

bee

Part of an ongoing series of photographic images documenting the process and detritus of my working practice.

Watermans Gallery 40 High St Bretford, London TW8 ODS

Antarctica -a choice? part of Rothera collection showing in Sunderland

National Glass Centre, Liberty Way, Sunderland

Dr Park, Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biology, University of Surrey, and Dr Caterina Albano, Research fellow and Curator for ArtAkt, The Innovation Centre, Central St Martins and I will be collaborating in researching the bacterial communication and light producing properties of P. phosphoreum outside of the usual confines of purely practical scientific practice and developing a body of work based on less traditionally scientific quantifiable attributes; an alternative data collection based on subjectivity, emotion, playfulness and instinctive human enquiry.

For more details and up to date information on the project see Exploring the Invisible