Artist Rosie Emerson and writer and curator Phillida Cheetham joined forces in the summer of 2010 for a 3 week intensive project as part of the Hackney WickED Art Festival.
With less than a month to go before the Festival itself, Hackney Wicked HQ were given a last-minute donation of an enormous warehouse space, slap-bang in the centre of the festival site. Named Vittoria Wharf, the building was made up of a series of ex-industrial units, many of which had been previously converted into live/work spaces and then squatted, or allowed to become derelict. Next door to the units was a gigantic single-room warehouse, crammed with abandoned machinery and disused car parts, which seemed to have had a previous life as a car mechanics workshop.
Never ones to turn down a good space, Rosie and Phillida took on the daunting task of clearing and programming the building. In less than a fortnight Vittoria Wharf had been cleared, and, 27 artists had been selected to show in the building’s wide range of spaces. Working with the site’s original features – river frontage, high ceilings and large windows - and also with a range of newer idiosyncrasies such as a tin-foil corridor, the shows included video, site specific installation, painting and performance art.
The project’s curatorial policy was strictly interdisciplinary, seeking to create a sense of dynamism and movement within the building. To this end we hosted both traditional group shows, such as A Plan Projects’ The Grass Grows Over the City, and peripatetic performance pieces such as Washing Line Productions’ Lisa Appleby. On the opening night the adjoining warehouse played host to Lauren and Laura’s Slow Dance, an interactive dance piece that located an intimate performance within the grand scale of the warehouse space.
Please follow the links below for more information about the individual shows and artists. Specific enquiries can be directed to Rosie Emerson (mail@rosieemerson.co.uk) or Phillida Cheetham at (phillidacheetham@hotmail.co.uk)
Many thanks to all the artists who took part, the Hackney WickED volunteers, Alard von Rahr and Art feelers for guiding excellent tours of the Galleries and special thanks to Spaced Up for donating the spaces.
Rosie Jackson- The Doll Music Video
Incorporating elements of puppetry, model-making and animation, Berlin based artist Rosie Jackson’s Doll Music Video works with the tension between the choreographed action of the model and the will of the artist, throwing into doubt the assumed roles of the mover and the moved.
Contact: rosiejackson@gmail.com
Martin Richman
Martin Richman’s light works demonstrate an empathetic understanding of how to enhance our experience of the space that we occupy. Even when his pieces are very complex to realise he has a subtle adeptness which gives a sense of exquisite simplicity and rightness to the finished work. For Hackney Wicked Martin exhibited in Vittoria Wharf’s idiosyncratic tin foil room.
Slow Dance
Laura Bridges and Lauren Willis’s Slow Dance is an interactive installation which establishes a fleeting relationship between the performer and their audience, creating an intimate moment in an unusual space. It is a one-on-one performance which took place in the warehouse next to Vittoria Warf on Friday evening.
The Hunters Meal - Gaetan Sigonney
Sculpture and Installation by French artist Gaetan Sigonney
Dean Hollowood
This work is from a series of confined landscapes recorded along a stretch of the River Lea. Hollowood is interested in the islands of tidal debris and direct interventions that litter the area. Signifying both decay and rejuvenation, they evoke the ongoing conflict between man and nature.
Liam Newnham
Exploring the ‘in between spaces’ of the site, Liam Newnham created a mixed media sculptural intervention into the structure of Vittoria Wharf.
Mountains like People
Artists, Ross Robertson, Chris Mackie and Richard Bracken. In the Wilderness, we are stripped of comfort and resort to base functionality. To acknowledge a state so close to survival, by creating autonomy, those who choose to do so test their selves.
Hester Finch and Laurence Owen
Paintings and film by London based artists Hester Finch and Laurence Owen
The Grass Grows over the City- curated by Cat Bagg
Throughout history great cities and civilizations have been built and thrived and have then fallen into ruin or disuse. Curated by Cat Bagg. Artists Hannah Turner Duffin, Shan Hur, Louise Thomas , Oliver Parkinson, James Pimperton, Lise Hovesen, Luke Johnson each explore the ebb and flow of the progress of humanity.
