Participants (see their HS progress)
- Antonia Boyle
- Aphra Cheesman
- Nina van Duijnhoven
- Jack Hadley
- Fran Leitch
- Nikki Perry
- Amelia Rothwell
- Mia Straka
- Simon Swale
- Susan Videler
- Michelle Wilkinson
- Macarena Bernal
The HANDSHAKE 6 Activities’ programme for 2020 – 2021:
MASTERclass 2021
ON-E by: Estela Saez Vilanova (CAT-ES)
A series of Zoom workshops during April – October about ONLINE EXHIBTIONS with the intention to prepare Handshake 6 artists for their online exhibition submission
Statement: Recently, curators and educators have progressively started exploring the numerous possibilities proposed by virtual exhibitions. Institutions have made 3-D tours of their galleries accessible online through a variety of platforms, allowing visitors from around the globe to virtually “wander” through many Museums around the world, Van Gogh Museum or Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico among other significant sites. But when the Covid-19 pandemic started, public curiosity in virtual art experiences, as for the need of the maker to present worldwide their works, increased like never before.
The online-exhibiting field is yet to be fully discovered, therefore our main purpose with this Masterclass -besides the fact that Handshake Program has since long counted with online exhibitions-, it is to offer intuitive virtual exhibition ideas and presentation of our works, that offers flexibility and are willing to reach to public and/or followers showing their final results, as for its working process as part of the result itself. Aiming at generating enthusiasm through sharing emotions, new values and creating expectations; “The goal is the meaning and the meaning is the goal” while testing abstract and visual/sound experiments, we will our work and process as for the idea of how to present virtually these works yet we as creators. Throughout provoking alternatives to in-person viewing, interactive and a variety of content formats that viewers can engage with, especially during the present times we live in.
Techniques: Video/sound/photo
JEWELcamp 2021 June – Aug
FUNDRAISING Workshop
by: Joany Grima
Objectives: To empower HS6 artists to create a practical, implementable and achievable plan to achieve your collective Handshake fundraising goal.
JEWELcamp & MASTERclass 2020
The HS6 programme started off in pre-Covid January with a JEWELcamp that contained an intro and instruction to the programme, and a Push/Pull intro workshop with Renee Bevan, and a Masterclass workshop with Iris Eichenberg at NZ school of Art & Fashion, Epsom, Auckland.
What happened during MASTERclass:
HS6 artists had to place 5 unfinished works and a finished work they brought along from their workshops on the table.
Iris asked to spend 45 mins with no talking, moving around the tables and adding, subtracting, or moving/grouping works as they pleased.
On an adjacent table, each had tipped out the shoebox of workshop materials they brought along. Invited to help themselves to anyone’s collection they ‘interfered’ with others’ work on the table. After this, all had to write down what was noticeable when they interfered with other’s people’s objects, and what was noticeable what happened to their own work.
Each discussed that in the group.
Following that Iris asked to take some things off the table that was thought were not finished or did not belong there – then to replace it with something.
After that they were instructed to categorise the remaining works into groupings.
They started this in seperate groups, but all moved in and around so the groups weren’t fixed, which happened naturally. After categorising, the remaining works were labelled and went into collections.
This freeing and fun exercise illuminates and illustrates how artists operate in terms of editing and taste preferences.
Iris’ questioning and inspiring ways brought magic to HS6
Blog Posts
La Notte /The Night: Love, Longing and Loneliness in the Age of Isolation.
Recent workshops with Estella have been challenging , but opened up so many new avenues for work and thinking; being asked to create moving image is new (to us all i think!) but the opportunity to develop refinements and multiple iterations resulted in surprising...
Drawing the threads together – Place, Space and Time
contemporary jewellery practice represented through time based media in a virtual landscape
Words with Iris July 2021 It had been months since Iris and I connected, both of us have had a busy year. It is always so grounding to hear her voice carefully analyse the photos I have sent her. We stray into other topics then work our way back to my work. She set me...
August Progress
Coloured skin, What does it go through, what does it endure? How does it feel? It's the end of August. Im in level 4 lockdown being diligent. MB
Gleanings (part 1)
To glean: ‘to gather information or material bit by bit’ (Meriam-webster) I thought it would be good to put together a list of some of the recent things I’ve been learning, reading, watching and listening to; some artists whose work I’ve been looking at and...
Drawing the threads together – Focus
Empty promises will now be fulfilled in a gush of blog posts to catch up on past busy months! We have been a collective hive of activity, exhibition planning, fundraising doings, online exhibition masterclasses plus personal research, playing, exploring and making....
Thank you…
Thank you to Judy for lending me 'Fetish' ! A wondrous collection of essays...! x
Conversation no. 2
A while back I posted a blog about a conversation I had with one of my pieces which was the result of a performative exercise that Peter Deckers asked us to do. (The conversation, Aug 4, 2020) Here is a conversation I had with another piece, picking up from where we...
How to chain an elephant?
In parts of the world, elephants are exploited for transportation, construction, logging, ceremonial use and as a tourist attraction. The elephant must obey his owner and cannot run rampant. Elephants are large animals, built to uproot trees using only their trunk, so...
June delights
Now we are six. Looking back at the month of June. Big month. The magic cortisone injection into the shoulder took place early June. It took a couple of weeks to settle down, but it enabled me to get some sleep, and reduce my painkiller intake. Estela Saez...
Slim Pickings
Looking back through my diary to see what I’ve been doing...here goes...now May. I had nothing to show Attai this month. The debilitating shoulder is ongoing. Deeply frustrating and a much more social month as a consequence, catching up with fellow HS6’s and family....
Cremation of a Pearl
Looking back through my diary to see what I’ve been doing...here goes...back in April. I tripped up the stairs and hurt my shoulder. The aching was so bad and it was finally diagnosed as a frozen shoulder through ultrasound and have been getting treatment twice a week...
veni vidi vici video ( well sort of)
I do not consider myself a video artist. Clips of a large ship cruising up the harbour, my adult kids clowning about, the cat monstering a small dog, or a snow day constitute my video ‘library’. It has therefore, been a revelation participating in Estela Saez’s video...
“Silence isn’t empty; it’s full of answers”…Anonymous
Mouth Stone 2021 I intended to post more of past work from the “Under the bed“ series, however, I got waylaid with some fantastic mentoring sessions and discussions with Iris. These interactions have resulted in my work turning a corner into something I never thought...
The next step. A meeting with Renee Bevan.
What lies beneath the beauty of the work needs to be revealed, I realise. That the exhibition conditions might not facilitate this and that is OK. The topic is too big to unpack all at once. Because what lies beneath the beauty of the work will not go away, it's still...