Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
The Gallery, Stratford-Upon-Avon 5 July – 11 August
Reviewed by: John Cornall
As part of the Spirit of Friendship Festival celebrating the Commonwealth Games, Canadian artist Jen Hamilton and British artist Jen Southern combined forces to create 'Distance made good', a locally orientated project with a suitably global character. In a novel way, it brought together modern Stratford in Warwickshire, with its doppelganger, Stratford, Ontario, a town that's resemblance to the Bard's birthplace – since the link became official in 1832 – owes much to conscious intention.
On 15 June, artists from each places (both conspicuously named Jen) went for a parallel walk circumnavigating their respective towns, taking in notable sites and mapping the route using a GPS (Global Positioning System) device. A joint installation in which the course of both walks was described by ropes suspended by strings from the ceiling resulted.
The other work in the exhibition was a series of handmade, hand-sized textile wall pieces sewn to the wall, on which the artists used Lacis work – an early lace technique that involves crocheting between a grid of netting. These Lacis works embroider the routes of walks undertaken by residents from both communities. The two walks recorded in the major installation were tellingly similar whilst the embroideries were more various. The Lacis works were quiet and delicate, sewn onto a lattice-like ground suggestive of maps.
It's easy to interpret the Lacis works as standing for the private whilst the larger work stands for the public. Rope too could suggest old craft or 'pulling together', a civic emblem, whilst the embroideries carry connotations of painstaking solitary labour, traditionally undertaken by women – cultures of the hearth. Through correspondence and collaboration, 'Distance Made Good', opened out various thoughts about the way in which environment shapes identity, both individual and communal, even across continents.
Writer detail:
JOHN CORNALL
Venue detail:
No one has commented on this article yet, why not be the first?
To post a comment you need to login
Back to top