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
The Poet
‘The poet… is the man of metaphor: while the philosopher is interested only in the truth of meaning, beyond even signs and names, and the sophist manipulates empty signs… the poet plays on the multiplicity of signifieds.’ Derrida, 1982* ‘The poet’s job...
Let’s take a walk
“On our walk we encounter a few peculiar, rather incongruous objects, sometimes very much alone while others are in groups and radiate vigour and strength without ever being obtrusive. These are small things that speak to you and although you do not always know their...
thinking skin pantones, Maca Bernal
Im studying skin colours, in the search for a colour system or Pantone. Drawn to the word degrade, its meanings, its connotations. Degraded, degrading, degradé. And what it could mean to wear it. I noticed that this set of sphere halves, resembled the colour pallet of...
MAPPING
Much of my MFA work focussed on considering and exploring notions of space and place. Of finding ways to articulate spaces of the everyday that operate as thresholds and/or places of transition; where land meets water, such as ports, as well as other points of...
BAD JEWELLERY, GOOD ART?
Words with Iris Eichenberg
Yesterday I had my Zoom meeting with Iris, I had been putting it off because the work was not flowing. As those of you who were at the masterclass this year will know, she sees into your very jewellery soul, which is at once disconcerting and a relief. These meetings...
The Conversation
Peter Deckers has given us a range of performative exercises to help us get out of our habitual working patterns. One of these exercises is to talk, shout, whisper or make sounds to your object, and see what response this creates in you or your object. What is your...
Patterns and Structures
I initially started this handshake project looking at patterns of growth. Initial experiments were made out of metal using the pattern of skin cells to create a magnified version. If we think about cells and their patterns we suddenly realise we are surrounded by...
Everything wants to be a necklace
Practicing NOT making jewellery NOT using metal To move beyond where I’m at It’s a challenge Everything wants to be a necklace Collecting, Deconstructing, Reconstructing A double sided homemade cardboard loom with a built in hole Site for experimental...
Channelling Meret
I truly have no idea what I have done since I wrote my last blog. I’ve been looking back at Meret Oppenheim’s compositions, marvelling at Keith Sonnier’s colours and neons, trawling through Hilary Mantel’s latest novel The Mirror and the Light. The daily explorations...
Conversations with Mah: Claiming My Voice
“Read things in the style that you would like your voice to sound like – so that it can be your inspiration and you can study it - absorb it through osmosis.” “Read what you love, not what you think you ‘should’ read.” “Find a way to write about your work that...
In memory of George Floyd and all who have suffered at the hands of systemic racism and violence
It seems to be the nature of contemporary life that history erupts upon the surface of our lives in ever more frequent waves. There seems a volatility in the fabric of society that has created tension and unease. The papered over cracks of history are being torn apart...
Thoughts on holes
I’ve been exploring holes a lot in my work lately so I thought I would write a list of all the different words for holes that I can think of. Holes continue to be a running theme throughout my current works and I spend a lot of time thinking about different kinds of...
HANDSHAKE IN HAMILTON
Left: Hannah Ireland, Closed Curtains, 2020 Right: Jack Hadley, Baroque Flower Indigo Storm Blue, 2020 Image: Weasel gallery Two weeks ago, I exhibited my jewellery for the first time. This was part of the exhibition HANDSHAKE IN HAMILTON at Weasel Gallery. 11 of the...
An exhibition in my living room
I’ve been lucky to have had plenty of time at the workshop this year. Investigating everyday objects and materials, I have kept the parameters in which I am working broad, allowing my environment and the things within it to direct me. Walking, noticing, collecting…...