Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
By: Charlotte Pratley
Going Nowhere are bringing together as many creative types and interested people as possible with the very English past-time of cress growing. In No Fixed Abode's Caban Unnos, a structure built overnight in urban Berlin, we plan to grow a carpet of cress in order to serve egg and cress sandwiches to visitors and residents alike. However, the enthusiasm for cress seems to be more widespread than we first imagined....
Going Nowhere are a regionally-based but internationally practising artist and project group, consisting of Katrine Brosnan, Adam Goodge, Amanda Going, Rebecca Gove-Humphries and myself, Charlotte Pratley.
# 1 [16 May 2008]
Based on a Medieval loophole that allowed people to claim rights to the land if they could build a cottage between dusk and dawn, No Fixed Abode plan to build a one-night-house as part of New Life Contemporary Art Festival in Berin, in June.
After meeting Terry and Horatio of No Fixed Abode, it became clear that the most exciting part of the project would be the interaction of strangers and friends throughout the designing and building process, leading to a shared experience, so we began to consider how to expand this concept to create more interactions. The outcome of many pub meetings was the invention of cress growing packs that can be sent to people who would like to grow cress for us to install inside the one-night-house. We will then visit them in Berlin to collect the plants and create an indoor meadow of cress for an egg and cress sandwich based event; a reflection of our British invasion of the German artscene via the miracle of budget airlines!
Since posting requests for German cress growers, we have received e-mails from British people too. As this could be great way to meet new friends and experience new places (one our main objectives at Going Nowhere) we now have to decide how to include these growers too. One suggestion has been to ask people to send us photos of their cress, or perhaps artists around the country could serve egg and cress sandwiches at the same time as we do…perhaps this could become a national egg and cress sandwich day! Or does that already exist…?
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