Events Archive
Gathering Moss
Contributing Artists
- Elin Wikstrom
- Sian Stammers
- The Owl Project
- Ivan & Heather Morison
- Peter Fischli & David Weiss
‘The materials of city planning are: sky, space, trees, steel and cement; in that order and that hierarchy.’ – Le Corbusier
Gathering Moss will explore the underlying links between modern city dwelling and a human need for a green, organic environment. With off-site projects inhabiting municipal parks in Derby City Centre and a Narnia-like woodland environment being presented in the gallery itself – this exhibition is set to get to the roots of the Romantic ideal of an enchanted forest and shows how pockets of urban wilderness can be as inspirational as the dark, dark woods featured in folktales of long ago.
Gathering Moss will take the visitor on a journey, guiding him or her to take note of the naturally occurring minutiae in every drainpipe or breezeblock. The everyday strangeness of these urban sites is contrasted with more traditional perceptions of forests or woodlands. Like Gilles Deluze’s ‘weeds through pavement cracks,’ the works in this exhibition remind us of the temporality of man-made structures in comparison to ancient plant-life.
Peter Fischli & David Weiss, the internationally renowned artist duo from Zurich, have been collaborating since 1979 on a body of work that humorously celebrates the sheer banality of everyday existence. In 2003, Fischli & Weiss won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. For Gathering Moss, Q Arts will present their film The Right Way.
Ivan & Heather Morison will present a new off-site commission for Gathering Moss, for which they have captured the inner voices of trees. The Morisons recently exhibited work in The Art of the Garden, Tate Britain, London and will be showing at The British Art Show 6.
Elin Wikström has made projects for high profile, international exhibitions such as the second Tirana Biennale, Tirana and Transform & Exchange, Kunstverein München. For Gathering Moss, Wikström will present Twin Tree: an international project concerned with the re-planting of fruit trees across forest areas from Iceland to Africa.
Sîan Stammers is based in the East Midlands and has recently completed a photo book project with patients at Nottinghamshire Hospice and exhibited her work at the City Gallery, Leicester. Q Arts have commissioned Stammers to create a new photographic project documenting areas of urban neglect and wilderness around Derby city centre entitled Urban Spook and Shakespeare’s Wood.
The Owl Project are two artists based in Manchester. Continuing their exploration of the sonic properties of woodwork, The Owl Project will create rhythmical improvised music by converting the motion of a woodworking contraption into amplified sound.
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