CONTEXT
The Institute blog. A collection of information, essays and polemics relating to industry, culture and technology.
Business cannot exist in a vacuum. We examine the nature of ideas, communications and change within our contemporary cultural and technological landscape. We highlight potentially harmful actions and advocate for the freedom, meaning and agency required for human industry to thrive in a complicated and uncertain world.
Archive Fever
Five venues across the town kick off a new series of cultural events aimed at the local community.
Loughborough Lates is a new event hosted by five art and culture venues spread across the town centre and campus. Loughborough comes to life with visual art exhibitions, creative workshops and interactive events - all free to attend and participate in.
ARCHIVE FEVER
Archive Fever by Josie and Joshua Jones was shown at the Institute Research Lab at Loughborough Lates and will now be premiering on YouTube on Thursday 15th of December. In response to our 2022 Archive Fever exhibitions, this multi-screen installation shows interviews with six artists and contributors about the Leicestershire Museums Collection. Their conversations cover an array of topics, from nostalgia, conspiracy theories, preservation, and the personal responses they had to the objects within the archives. About Archive Fever The films shown in this installation are commissioned by Modern Painters, New Decorators as part of their exhibition programme, also titled Archive Fever.
The project centred around four solo exhibitions by visual artists; Joanne Masding, Jagjit Kaur, Daniel Cowlam and Katie Schwab. These projects began with a series of research trips to the Leicestershire Museums Collection, facilitated by Alison Clague, Senior Curator of the collection. The collection features a range of items relating to the county's history, including; rare butterflies, old farm tools, Victorian costumes, 1970s' Action Man', Neolithic stone axes and 19th-century engravings.
The artists used this research to produce new work inspired by the collection, and a selection of items from the collection were displayed alongside the newly created artwork. About Homespun Joshua and Josie Jones live and work together in Loughborough. They are also known as Homespun. Since graduating from the University, they've been developing as storytellers – mainly through photography and filmmaking, but more recently, this has opened out into all sorts of other creative practices. They spend much time with artists, charities and small businesses, working together on projects. They are part of the Modern Painters, New Decorators team and have documented their art programme for several years.
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Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Participating venues: Charnwood Arts, the Institute Research Lab, LU Arts, Modern Painters, New Decorators and Sock Gallery.
THE FUTURE
A big thank you to @mpndprojects @sockgallery @lborouniarts @charnwood_arts and all those that turned up and took part. It always tricky to get this kind of thing organised and to get people together but it really is worth it. We met some great people and look forward to more Lates in the future!
#LoughboroughLates Contact mpndprojects@gmail.com for inquiries
Instagram @charnwood_arts @institute_lab @LUArts @mpndprojects @sockgallery
An Evening of Art, Design and Technology
Institute was one of the participating venues in the Loughborough Lates launch. The night included visual arts exhibitions, creative workshops and interactive events.
Institute was one of the participating venues in the Loughborough Lates launch. Loughborough Lates is a new event hosted by five art and culture venues spread across the town centre and campus. The night included visual arts exhibitions, creative workshops and interactive events.
Loughborough Lates is a new event hosted by five art and culture venues spread across our town centre and campus. From 5:30pm on Friday, 16 September, Loughborough will come to life with visual art exhibitions, creative workshops and interactive events - all free to attend and participate in. Maps are available at participating venues on the day. Charnwood Arts, Institute, LU Arts, Modern Painters, New Decorators and Sock Gallery, are the venues involved.
THE VENUES AND THEIR EVENTS
Charnwood Arts: 27 Rectory Place, LE11 1UW
Breathe, Create: Exhibition and Activity
The Charnwood Arts ‘Breathe, Create’ sessions are about engaging in mindful creativity. See our ‘Breathe, Create’ exhibition and try one of the activities with artist Khyati Koria Green, 6-7pm. We will also be showcasing the story of Songster, Loughborough's own War Horse, with author Alison Mott and artist Liz Waddell. Visitors can access us via our wheel-chair accessible front door.
Institute: Upper Rooms, 11 Baxter Gate, LE11 1TG
Ambient Visions: Martyn Blundell
A video installation that subverts the conditions in which we usually experience patterns, made up of shifting colour fields and ‘weaves'.
Crystal System: Leonie DuBarry-Gurr, Andy Harper and Todd Finnamore
An immersive and accessible sculptural installation with an interactive, contemplative soundscape.
LU Arts: Martin Hall, Epinal Way, LE11 3TS
The Domestic Academics: Finding the time to write and care
This project brings together twenty-three women academics with caring responsibilities, each responding to a call to create a quilt panel reflecting their experience working during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The gallery is located on Pearce Square, in Martin Hall. It is advised to park in the Cope Auditorium car park and walk across Epinal Way. It is directly opposite Cope Auditorium, which is next to Loughborough College.
Modern Painters, New Decorators: Carillon Court Shopping Centre, LE11 3XA
Hosiery Abstracts: Katie Schwab
Katie Schwab is a maker who works with installation, textiles, print and video to explore histories of craft, design and education. For this project, Katie immersed herself in local histories of machine knitting and attended a machine knitting course, learning techniques that have inspired new knitted artworks and a wall-based work. Visitors can enter our gallery via the Swan Street entrance of Carillon Court Shopping Centre.
Sock Gallery: Town Hall, Market Place, LE11 3EB
Our Charnwood and Beyond: Russel Taylor
Russell has an intense desire to capture the joy of the landscape. Working exclusively with acrylics, a completed painting is often a journey of chance! The gallery will be running a competition in the evening with a chance to win an exclusive Sock Gallery prize. Visitors enter the space through the front doors; everything is on one level.
AT INSTITUTE
We exhibited two exhibitions. In Studio 02, a screen based series of five video works by Martyn Blundell and an interactive installation by Leonie Dubarry-Gurr and Andy Harper in Studio 04.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
CRYSTAL SYSTEM
There were curious looks on the faces of members of the lab as Leonie and Andy spent the week prior to the launch working on the technicalities of the installation in Studio 04.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
An immersive and accessible sculptural installation, Crystal System offers new vantage points from which to come to terms with one's existence, in relationship to the world and others around us. Inspired by crystallised rock formations in the natural realm, Crystal System proposes an opportunity for contemplation via the meditative qualities of refracted and reflected light.In addition to the sculptural elements, the public can interact with a ruminative soundscape which supports contemplation.
Crystal SystemAcrylic, Wood, Light fixtures, Found objects.
Conceived by Leicester-based artists Leonie DuBarry-Gurr and Andy Harper in collaboration with Todd Finnamore.
www.andyharper.co.uk // @isandyharper // www.leoniedg.com // @beautiful__remainswww.monoworks.shop // @mono.works
AMBIENT VISIONS
Martyn Blundell is joining Institute as an associate. He kicks this off with a series of screen based works on display in Studio 02. If you ever wondered what would happen if you were to weave together the view a passenger might have during a series of global road trips, this might be it. They are beautiful, hypnotic and a little trippy! You can view Martyn’s video based art below.
These works belong to a series that has evolved, in part, from the idea of weaving space and time. Ambient Visions is a video installation that subverts the conditions in which we normally experience pattern. Shifting colour fields and ‘weaves' become a kind of metaphor for that feeling you get when travelling; an attempt to convey something of the porous state we fall in to when staring through the window of a moving vehicle. A dream-like travel metaphor.
THE FUTURE
A big thank you to @mpndprojects @sockgallery @lborouniarts @charnwood_arts and all those that turned up and took part. It always tricky to get this kind of thing organised and to get people together but it really is worth it. We met some great people and look forward to more Lates in the future!
#LoughboroughLates Contact mpndprojects@gmail.com for inquiries
Instagram @charnwood_arts @institute_lab @LUArts @mpndprojects @sockgallery