art

Women Hold Up Half The Sky press release

For immediate use: 11 May 2018 

Pankhurst in the Park celebrates Ekua Bayunu’s “Women Hold up Half the Sky”

Pankhurst in the Park is proud to present this year’s artist in residence Ekua Bayunu’s “Women Hold up Half the Sky”, an interdisciplinary project taking place over eight weeks between April 14th and June 9th. This is an invitation to join us on the final date, when we will take the opportunity to celebrate the project and what it’s participants have produced in Alexandra Park. There will be music, spoken words, exhibitions, a sculpture trail, art workshops, and a closing party at the Pavilion Café.

2018 marks both the centenary of women (over thirty) winning the right to vote in England and the third and final year of the Pankhurst in the Park program. We commemorate this historic achievement and reflect on the ongoing issues with the political agency and representation of women today. One of the ways we have responded to this is by using this project as a platform to showcase the wealth and talent that female artists, in Manchester and internationally, have to offer.

Ekua’s proposal led to her being awarded the artist in residence commission by a selection panel of eminent figures within the Manchester art community, among them John McGrath, director of the Manchester International Festival and Helen Wewiora of the Castlefield Gallery. Other commissioned local artists include Anna FC Smith and Tasha Whittle.

Of being awarded this position in the project, Ekua said this:

I was thrilled to hear I had won the residency. It means so much to me to be able to work with Alexandra Arts, with all their passion and creative energy AND it means so much to me to be able to bring the local communities that I cherish, into this creative enterprise.

In between the opening and closing dates of “Women Hold up Half the Sky”, Ekua will be coordinating local community engagement and off-sight female artist studio initiatives in the form of a series of meetings and workshops. Ekua’s project is run in association with Global Arts Manchester, a group she co-founded.

Alexandra Arts teamed up with NYC-based publication 511 Magazine to produce a special edition for this year’s Pankhurst in the Park, published on March 8th, International Women’s Day. It includes an article on Ekua’s work by NYC-based artist Katie Cercone. It also features art, prints, and articles by a number of other artists who are contributing this year including Anna FC Smith, Tasha Whittle, Go! Push Pops (2014’s artist in residence), Marilyn Minter, Melanie Banajo, NARCISSISTER and much more. Printed copies are available at all our events and as a free download.

Find out more at www.alexandra-arts.org.uk.

ENDS

Comments, photos, and interviews are available. Please contact Lotte Karlsen by phone on +44 (0)7816683171 or email press@alexandra-arts.org.uk.

EMINENT DOMAIN press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Scotto Mycklebust, 917 697-0844, scotto@scottomycklebust.com; Gia Portfolio, 201 248-6756, gia.portfolio@gmail.com

ART511MAG EMINENT DOMAIN EXHIBITION

OPEN CALL FOR INTERSECTIONAL FEMINIST ART

(New York, NY, April 24, 2018) - ART511 Magazine is presenting EMINENT DOMAIN: a 3-day Flash Art Exhibition in the former Robert Miller space in West Chelsea. The exhibition is a curated selection of radical feminist art by female artists, eco-femmes, ghetto brujas, elders, queer/trans artists and other magical gender nomads reclaiming their rightful space in the Art World. The flash exhibition will occur July 12-14, 2018. 

Addressing the white male western canon’s discourse drawing from, exploiting, misrepresenting and objectifying female bodies and the racial/sexual Other, EMINENT DOMAIN occupies a major white box space in the heart of the commercial art world with a militantly utopic “flash flood” of new media, live performance and traditional visual art of every size and stripe, washing away old, derogative archetypes to tell another story about Art, ritual, community and the divine feminine mysteries.

EMINENT DOMAIN opens July 12th for 3 days in Chelsea, concluding with a Women In the Arts Panel comprised of a diverse cross-section of female thought leaders in the International Art World playing the fluid roles of curator, organizer/activist, gallerist, artist and arts administrator.

EMINENT DOMAIN was an impulse seeded by ART511 Magazine’s recent partnership with the Manchester, UK-based Alexandra Arts collective. This Spring, ART511 Magazine and Alexandra Arts teamed up to produce a limited edition 74-page, full-color print commission celebrating International Women’s Day and the centenary for UK women's suffrage (funded by ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND) for the 2018 Pankhurst in the Park season.

The edition is available as a free download online here

EMINENT DOMAIN flash exhibition will be presented Thursday, July 12, 2018: Opening Reception 6-8 p.m. & after Art party from 8-10 p.m. The exhibition will be open to the public Thursday, Friday & Saturday, July 12-14, from 10-6 p.m. ART511 Magazine will host a moderated panel discussion “Women in the Arts” in the afternoon on Saturday, July 14, 2018. 

Artists interested in being considered for this show can submit work or proposals for performance online at ART511MAG.com/submissions.  

We are seeking video, installation, new and mixed media as well as painting and sculptural objects, performance, music, spoken word and new genre time-based pieces. 

*Artists are required to provide all tech for video and multimedia works

See the open call here & SUBMIT work for the exhibition @ ART511MAG.com/submissions 

Deadline to Apply: May 24, 2018

For more info contact scotto@scottomycklebust.com

OPEN CALL FOR INTERSECTIONAL FEMINIST ART

EMINENT DOMAIN: A Flash Art Exhibition in the former Robert Miller space in West Chelsea is a curated selection of radical feminist art by female artists, eco-femmes, ghetto brujas, elders, queer/trans artists and other magical gender nomads reclaiming their rightful space in the Art World. We can unpack Feminism here and define it, as critical theorist and activist bell hooks does - “a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression” - at the roots of which is gender stereotypes and narratives perpetuated by heteronormative white male capitalist patriarchy, not men themselves. Based on the logic that the white male western canon has always revolved around a discourse drawing from, exploiting, misrepresenting and objectifying female bodies and the racial/sexual Other, EMINENT DOMAIN seizes a white box space in the heart of the commercial art world for a militantly utopic “flash flood” of new media, live performance action and artworks of every size and stripe that explode the old derogative archetypes and tell another story about Art, ritual, community and the divine feminine mysteries. Intersectional, post-colonial, queer, social-justice oriented and community-minded works of Art from folks that defy the status quo and get knee-deep in the paradigm shift will overwhelm the space and stake ground for new dialogue, new ideals and new marketplace tactics. Visionary video, installation, new and mixed media as well as painting and sculptural objects will snake through the gallery space animated by the din of performance, music, spoken word and new genre time-based pieces.  A handful of the contemporary art world’s key non-profit organizations will join us to present what they do and how you can get involved.

EMINENT DOMAIN was an impulse seeded by Art 511 Mag’s recent partnership with the Manchester, UK-based Alexandra Arts collective. This Spring, Art 511 Mag and Alexandra Arts teamed up to produce a limited edition 74 page full-color print commission celebrating International Women’s Day and the centenary for UK women's suffrage (funded by ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND) for the 2018 Pankhurst in the Park season. The edition, available as a free download online here, features critical essays, interviews and artworks by notoriously brilliant siren radicals such as Marilyn Minter, Narcissister, Melanie Bonajo, Samantha Conlon (Bunny Collective), Go! Push Pops and Ekua Bayunu among others. Included in this curated selection is film stills from the infamous performance artist Narcissister’s first original feature film Organ Player, which reflects on the personal impact of her mother’s illness and death, also a 2018 selection at the Sundance Film Festival. Marilyn Minter’s bush painting gracing the back cover is part of a series partially inspired by a set of photos which were the result of a 2014 photography commission Minter attempted to complete for Playboy magazine. Minter’s editorial was rejected by Playboy for its depiction of women’s pubic hair au natural, and later became a book and subject of the paintings included in our special women’s issue. Meanwhile a narrative photo essay by Bunny Collective director Samantha Conlon explores the relationship between illness, the medical industrial complex and women’s agency.

As Alexandra Arts director Lotte Karlsen and Amy Clancy outline in the forward: “The art world still bows to a model created by white European men. The top three museums in the world, the British Museum, the Louvre, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art have never had female directors. Female artists earn less on average than their male counterparts and make up a fraction of the work in permanent exhibitions and auction market. It’s not enough to be good at their game or even the best; it’s rigged. So, it’s time to devise our own, not just for and by women, but in collaboration with all those whose voices, opportunities and rights are stifled.” In this spirit, EMINENT DOMAIN is a guerrilla exhibition mounted in the global art epicenter of the world which boldly carries the torch for alternative models promoting the power, equality, magic, pleasure, creative self-expression and financial freedom of women, people of color, and gender non-conformers. 

EMINENT DOMAIN opens July 12th in Chelsea followed by a Women In the Arts Panel comprised of a diverse cross-section of female thought leaders in the International Art World playing the fluid roles of curator, organizer/activist, gallerist, artist and arts administrator.

Download full ART 511 Alexandra Arts Commission here

SUBMIT work for the exhibition here

Happy International Womens Day

Happy International Women’s day and HELLO Pankhurst in the Park centenary magazine edition!

For Pankhurst in the Park 2018 we have teamed up with online publication and NYC based Art 511 Mag and commissioned a limited edition printed copy of the mag.

Curated between Alexandra Arts and Art 511 Mag, this special print edition features a host of inspirational contributors to whom we owe huge debt of thanks – Scotto Mycklebust, Katie Cerone, Gia Portfolio, Christopher Booth, Pablo Melchor, Marilyn Minter, Anna FC Smith, Melanie Bonajo, Go Push Pops, Laura Weyl , ULTRACULTURAL OTHERS, Samantha Conlon/ Bunny Collective, High Prieztezz or Nah, Sol Kjøk, Claire Zakiewicz, Ekua Bayunu, Elisa Garcia de la Huerta, Lauren Velvick, Hannah Leighton Boyce, Ruth Barker, Castlefield Gallery, Helen Wewoira, Naomi Kashiwagi, NARCISSISTER and Tasha Whittle.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we are heading down to the exhibition launch for Hannah Leighton Boyce and Ruth Barker at the Castlefield Gallery. To find out more about the artists’ research, and their residencies with Glasgow Women’s Library and the University of Salford. For the Art 511 Mag centenary edition we commissioned local artist and writer Lauren Velvick to write about the exhibition. Inside you will also find an interview of Helen Wewoira, Director of Castlefield Gallery.

Download it here or flick through the online copy below.

Pankhurst in the Park 2018

Bunny Collective in International New York Times

This years, Pankhurst in the Park Artist in residency Bunny Collective is making waves in the art world, with a full page interview by Ginanne Brownell Mitic in the International New York Times. In connection with their Frieze art fair edition. Both in print and online. We could not be happier for them!

Lasso of Truth NYC

Pop Amazon's Legacy Fatale Leads The March during NYC 21st Suffragette Festival

Pankhurst in the Park 2016 - Legacy Fatale commission ‘Lasso of Truth’ was performed at Grace Exhibition Centre in Brooklyn, 7th May 2016, the same day as our Alexandra Park Spring Showdown. Katie Cercone was there, writing for Whitehot Magazine, read the review here

“To kick off the event at Grace Space May 7th, modern-day Amazons Legacy Fatale and company will begin with a spirited march from Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick to Grace Exhibition Space. Recently back from Manchester, while in the UK the group performed a new work celebrating suffragette herstory for Alexandra Arts’s annual Wonder Woman festival. The Wonder Woman festival is part of the larger, comprehensive initiative of Manchester-based artist Lotte Karlsen to enact community art in Alexandra Park, turf upon which the suffragettes led some of their very first riots and rallies. Legacy Fatale will continue this thread in their work for the NYC-based sister project 21st Suffragettes.  ”
— Katie Cercone, WhiteHot Magazine

Observing the unobserved with Bunny Collective

Take a peek at the latest exhibition from the all-girl art collective – with I-D

“What We Are Doing is the new exhibition from all-girl art movement, the Bunny Collective, which aims to elevate the insignificant and shine light on all that is disregarded within our consumerist society. The title, taken from a quote by American political theorist, Hannah Arendt, invites artists to consider what it means to emphasise aspects of the human condition that frequently go unobserved. Having completed a two month residency at Manchester’s Alexandra Park, working with local artists and youth groups, Bunny Collective will stage their final exhibition as part of the #PankhurstinthePark Spring Showdown at the park this Saturday. ”
— Tish Weinstock, I-D

See the full article here

What We Are Doing - Bunny Collective

 

After a two month residency at Alexandra Park for Pankhurst in the Park 2016, during which time they worked with school children, artists, youth groups, and many others, Bunny Collective will reveal their final exhibition titled 'What We Are Doing'. Set in Alexandra Park's woodland, the Bunnies will lead guided tours around their exhibition, before interviewing Sarah Gavron, Director of the award-winning 2015 film, Suffragette, as part of the ‪#‎PankhurstinthePark‬ Spring Showdown with Bunny Collective & Suffragette Director, Sarah Gavron. We can't wait!

Join us and them, this Saturday (7 May), from 2pm onwards. All events are free. However, booking is required for the talk with Sarah Gavron (register via EventBrite) and only a few tickets remain.

Exhibiting Artists: Aoife O Dwyer, Camilla Frankl-Slater, Charlotte Cullen, Eleanor Cully, Hannah Le Feuvre, Riika Enne, Sasha Cresdee, Saffa Khan and Samantha Conlon

What We Are Doing - text by Kathryn O'Regan

Taking the title from a quote by Hannah Arendt – "What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing" – the exhibition, which will be located in the park’s fairy-tale woodland setting, invites the participating artists to consider what it means to emphasise aspects of the human condition that frequently go unobserved, or those acts which are discounted, intangible, insubstantial or fleeting. In particular, What we are doing will hope to explore Arendt’s distinction between labour and work.

For Arendt, labour encompasses the elements of human existence that are characterised by their ephemerality and that which are not physically quantifiable. In Arendt’s view, life depends on these humble acts of labour which do not leave behind a material trace, yet are wholly necessary for human survival. On the other hand, for Arendt, work involves the physical production of consumable things. Work is characterised by its permanence, artificiality, durability and reliance on manmade tools for production.

The goal of What we are doing will be to shine a light on that which may be deemed insignificant or disregarded within a contemporary society that privileges the commercial, the consumable, the physical and the permanent.

Like Bunny Collective’s previous exhibitions, notions of correspondence, connection and collaboration will be paramount. What we are doing asks the artists to consider what these concepts might mean in terms of Arendt’s labour and work divide; industry; history; heritage and political action.

Image © Samantha Conlon, Bunny Collective

Age Friendly Gallery visit

Alexandra Arts has been awarded funds through the Cash Grant scheme from the Whalley Range wards , to engage the elderly in the community through a series of art activities.

We are kicking this off with an invitation to older resident of Whalley Range to join Alexandra Arts as a special guest on the 26th of Match at Manchester Art Gallery for the age-friendly 'Pankhurst in the Gallery'*.  FREE transport and refreshments provided. 

Please spread the word! We are particularly keen to see older people who don't usually get out and about get involved. More age-friendly event to be confirmed shortly, so watch this space.

If you would like to come along please contact Alexandra Arts on hello@alexandra-arts.org.uk
Ring or send a text to: 07816683171
Landline: 01618813744 (In care of Chris at JNR8 Community Centre)  

This opportunity is funded by a Cash Grant from the Whalley Range Ward.

*Pankhurst in the Gallery is part of the Wonder Woman festival 2015