Fiona Long Art

In the pines

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

I’m so excited! I’ve just found out that I’m one of the 14 second years selected from Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon colleges of art to go on a cultural exchange to Tokyo for a month this summer! The project is funded by the Prime Minister’s Initiative 2. When we arrive we will have ‘tailor made’ guided tours of Tokyo and then make a presentation about our own work and research interests showing examples of UK contemporary art relevant to our own work. We will work together in the Tokyo Wondersite studios and workshops and continue to make research trips in and around Tokyo, participate in lectures and discussions, and write a log of the project as it unfolds. We will present an exhibition of work and ideas produced collaboratively and document it for the project website and future publication by Tokyo Wondersite. There is an open discussion session in the gallery involving tutors and students and invited specialist contributors who are related to the themes of the workshops. The workshops run by Prof. Chris Wainwright are based on the themes of Environment, Identity, and Utopia; some topics which I have a great deal of interest in. I can’t wait!

Post Consumer Material Culture

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

My end of second year show: Post Consumer Material Culture. In my imagined post apocalyptic scenario “After Day X” the resulting population will find objects from our time and wonder what to make of and from them. But what will this archaeology of the future tell us about our civilisation today?

Along with our human drive to explore the past and present through collecting and assembling objects, there is another just beyond survival drive to paint. Possibly this is a means to explore and understand the objects further, or were the objects made in response to the paintings?

The paints are made with earth pigments which could be sourced “After Day X”. Some of the paintings explore the objects and then some purely explore the materiality of the paint therefore creating a looping conversation between object, painting and material.

The whole collection is then displayed in ‘misunderstood’ furniture like drawers attached to the wall. The background paint is magnolia with a wry smile to our domestic reality today. If any paint did make it through the apocalypse, it would probably be an old warehouse full of magnolia!

Looking into a possible future like this, with the future population looking back in a sense brings us back to our present to make us examine and confront our world in a different way.

More photos of the intallation

Now for a bit of showing off: I was thrilled to be awarded with a first at 90%. Top of the year! Woo hoo! Sorry, I’ll behave myself and shut up now!

After Day X

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

I’m excited to have just discovered that I’m a finalist in the myartspace London Calling juried competition!

The esteemed panel of jurors consisted of:

Vanessa DesClaux, Assistant Curator of Performance, The Tate Modern, London

Tom Morton, curator at the Hayward Gallery, London and contributing editor at Frieze

and Francesco Manacorda, Curator, the Barbican Art Gallery, London

Myartspace.com is the premier online network for the contemporary art world.

Shelter

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

In late June/early July, I’m taking part in an exciting exhibition at the Chelsea Gallery in Chelsea Town Hall. It’s on the King’s Road and the nearest tube station is Sloane Square

Curated by Cristina Prudente and Nadia Perrotta, in this show 18 artists go on safari to explore the far off dimensions of both the real and the imaginary world. “Imaginary Geometries” includes works in mixed media, photography, video art, painting and installation and runs from the 29th of June to the 11th of July at the Chelsea Gallery on Kings Road, London. My work will be there from the 29th June -1st July.

Through the intelligence of their hearts they have left the crowd expressing their inner most fears, regrets, thoughts and loneliness, a vision of the future following a possible apocalyptic event, in their intuitive search for the unknown, both imagined or real.

The Artists are like dancers disappearing into their dance, searching for something that does not yet exist in order to bring it into existence, for the unknown to become known. Armed with the freedom of imagination they lay prejudices aside and explore many different ways to bring their creativity to the audience, blending culture, identity and belief.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
(Albert Einstein).

The private view will be on the evening of Wednesday 1st July. Food and drinks on the evening of the private view will be provided by a nearby Italian restaurant. I’d love to see you there. Please let me know if you can come.

Here is a map of how to get there.

On Sunday, I was back at Abbey Mills at the Wandle Valley Festival this time as a representative of POST artists, a local contemporary art group. I was helping to run a workshop for kids, with Catalina Garces and her husband Tom, to make collages inspired by the River Wandle and their favourite things along it. In spite of the extreme thunder storm first thing, the weather wasn’t too bad. We were extremely busy after lunchtime and really great time was had by all!

(All photos taken with permission of the children and their parents).

Hapa-zome eco-dyeing workshop

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

On Saturday, I did my first day of volunteering for the wonderful organisation called River and Cloth which highlights the rich textile heritage of the River Wandle in Merton. We were at the Wandle Valley Festival at Abbey Mills on Saturday. The workshop was run by a lovely textile artist: Viv Philpot who has been running the eco-dyeing phase of the project at local schools and for community projects.

Hapa-zome is a Japanese technique quite literally meaning leaf dyeing. You simply put a leaf or petal between two layers of fabric, we used calico, and give it a good bash with a rubber mallet until the juices from the plant go into the fabric itself. It’s rather therapeutic doing all that hammering and you get such an instant and effective result. I’m amazed I’d never heard of it before!

The leaves and flowers were picked along the river and at the River and Cloth allotment at Dean City Farm where the plants suitable for all their eco-dyeing techniques are grown.

As you can imagine, the kids loved it! Hammering away, making a noise and making something beautiful to take home too. It was a wonderful balance of being constructive and destructive at the same time! Inspite of the pretty dreadful weather, the workshop was a great success!

I really enjoyed being a part of the Park ‘09 exhibition of site based art works in the beautiful Cannizaro Park in Wimbledon. This year the event was curated by Sarah B Davies who selected projects from proposals by BA and MA Wimbledon School of Art students. The exhibition was a great success in spite of the pretty dicey weather. I’d considered the British weather when I came up with the idea of my piece so I not only had somewhere dry to sit whilst invigilating it, it also had a certain poetry to it.

I felt that this “Umbrella Den” would be ideal for Cannizaro since it fits in with attributes of the park such as dens, tunnels and shelter. The suburban park relates very closely to the umbrella since both are part practical, part ornamental. One is unlikely to spot either a rose garden or someone sporting an umbrella in the wilderness. In the park, or under an umbrella, events take place which can be semi-obscured: a lover’s kiss, a conversation, family bonding. I also intended a wry nod to the sea of umbrellas at Wimbledon tennis.

In my studio work, I have been looking at how objects are used and reused; their functionality redefined. I enjoyed the opportunity of exploring this theme within the larger arena of the park and observing how the public negotiated these visual questions. I am intrigued by the relationship between man and nature and their constant interplay so this work embodies this. The man-made umbrella used as shelter is blown inside out and broken by nature’s elements then redefined in a suburban setting amidst trees as a structure using both natural and man made elements. A shelter made from smaller umbrella shelters beneath the larger trees which also act as shelter.

It was a great challenge having my work shown in the public arena but many negotiations and health and safety forms later, it was so rewarding to see people reacting to and interacting with it. I learnt alot from talking to visitors to the exhibition and the park and listening to their comments. I’m so grateful for the wonderful opportunity. I think next year, I’ll do something about health and safety!

Thank you to the people at Cannizaro Park and Merton Council for letting us do it, Wimbledon College of Art, Sarah B Davies for all the hard curation work, Anne Parkes, Anna Steeden, Sophia Vincent for all their help and all the other artists who participated and helped. It was a great event and a huge success.

Some press coverage.

More about broken umbrelas and my Umbrella Den.

PARK ‘09

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

Well, I’m all packed, health and safety checked and ready to go for Park ‘09. The site based art event in the beautiful Cannizaro Park in Wimbledon. All the contributions come from BA and MA students at Wimbledon College of art and it is curated by Sarah B Davies.

The private view is from 6pm-8pm this Friday 15th May. So that means you’ll have more of a chance to get there after work and enjoy a couple of drinks on the lawn. How civilised! Alternatively, there is always the visiting at the weekend, with or without the family option. It’s going to be great fun with polar bears up to all kinds of mischief, hidden David Attenboroughs to spot, all sorts of magical things to find and dramatic structures to ponder.

Mine is going to be a den, covered in broken umbrellas found around the streets of Wimbledon. It explores the relationship between mankind and nature and compares the functionalilty and ornamental qualities of both the suburban park and the umbrella.

Do come along if you can make it. It promises to be a lovely event.

Here is a map to Cannizaro House in Cannizaro Park.

Me on the phone with Gayle Chong Kwan at the ICA

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

I did something really fun yesterday. I was an assistant/steward at the ICA for a really interesting event called Word Play run by fantastic artist Terry Smith. Word Play is an investigation into the spoken word as raw material. There were so many interesting and downright weird and wonderful things going on! Staring competitions, Strings: a group of amazing vocalists who sung the programme, several brilliant films including the rather harrowing but darkly comical July The Twelfth 1984 by Jordan Baseman. There was also an extraordinary performance by Jefford Horrigan who thinks of words as objects or things with the same importance as the furniture he employs. Linda Hirst who has worked with many of the world’s leading composers and worked closely with John Cage performed and led a workshop on John Cage’s ‘ARIA’ 1958. It was pretty midblowing and hilarious stuff!

My favourite event of the day was ‘Visitor/Guest Book: ICA by London’ by Gayle Chong Kwan. It is an ongoing series of drawings created through telephone conversations between the artist and people in different locations. I was one of the lucky volunteers to take part and it was so much fun! She described something near her (in this case a tamborine) and I drew it according to her description. This is alot harder than you’d think as unlike drawing normally when you have pretty much all of the information available to you at obnce, this information comes more gradually. I was allowed to ask any questions I liked so it was a very interactive conversation (if a little difficult die to the surrounding noise). Then it was my turn to describe my surroundings to Gayle. I thought I’d turn round and describe something behind me so it wasn’t the same as everyone else. I told her about the picture hanging behind me which was up my street since it reminded me of an umbrella handle! I felt rather pleased when she said how much she’d enjoyed my description! Just as well since I was rather embarrassed by my drawing! I put the date, my name and email address into the book so that she will later email me both my drawing of her surroundings and her drawing of mine. I can’t wait to see them!

Telephone box galleries: balloons. Private View

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

After the success that Nichol Keene and I had with our telephone box balloon event near London Bridge, we decided to have a private view in a gallery space to see how people would react to it there. We pasted the questionnaires onto the wall (with the names and email addresses removed) so that people could read the responses and then projected our video documentation of the event onto them. It was held in a small room and we covered the floor in balloons. I suppose it’s strange to show documentation as a show in a way but it was the public’s reactions that most fascinated me so I thought it would be interesting to then see an art audience’s reaction to the public reaction. Can you tell I did a psychology degree?

Although I was curious about the reactions we’d get to this…I was a little worried too. It turns out that there was no need. People seemed to enjoy it and stayed packed in that little room with the balloons for much longer that I’d ever imagined!

Thanks again Nichol. I couldn’t have done it without you!