Site Festival 2015 WEEK 1: Wednesday 1st – Sunday 5th April
Welcome to the first week of the Site Festival. Here are the listings for the week.
We have lots of exhibitions opening on Saturday 4th for the Site Festival launch. We are particularly pleased to be working with BRICKHOUSE for the Andy Holden exhibition in the Goods Shed and at Robbins and Roberts in SVA, John Street.
We hope you can come along to the launch on Saturday. Don't forget to RSVP to site@sva.org.uk for the after party from 9pm till late.
WEEK 1: Wednesday 1st – Sunday 5th April
Alchemy
Gloucestershire Printmaking Cooperative
10th March-26th April
Tuesday-Friday, 10am-5pm
Saturdays and Sundays, 11am-4pm
Bank Holiday Monday, 11am-5pm
The Museum in the Park, Stratford Park, Stroud GL5 4AF
T. 01453 763394
www.museuminthepark.org.uk
This exhibition explores the alchemy of printmaking. It showcases a wide variety of techniques and processes, together with the accoutrements of printmaking such as actual plates and screens, tools and materials, offering visitors an insight into how prints are created and what Fine Art Printmaking is all about.
MOULD TV
1st-30th April
MOULD TV returns to Site, reviewing, interviewing and documenting Site artists, events and participants all from their pop up TV studio. Don’t be shy if you see them! MOULD is a youth arts collective comprising of a range of creative activities from film through to fashion. The collective aims to bring contemporary arts to a younger audience through creating, curating and facilitating youth art events and projects.
John Street Social Club
Friday 3rd April 7-11pm
SVA 4 John Street, Stroud, GL5 2HA
The John Street Social Club is a series of weekly Friday night club socials hosted by different artists each week with visuals and audio to share. The format: decks, laptop, and a limited number of selected youtube clips of archive footage and informative curiosities...
£1 membership on the door
BRICKHOUSE presents:
Its Only Bondage Was the Circling Sky
Andy Holden, with Ivy Leeson and Secluded Brontë
www.andyholdenartist.com
www.brickhouseprojects.org
Brontë Country
Andy Holden and Secluded Brontë
Saturday 4th April 6-9pm
7th-19th April
Tuesday-Sunday 11am-6pm
SVA, Goods Shed, Stroud GL5 3AP
Its Only Bondage Was the Circling Sky
Andy Holden, with Ivy Leeson
Saturday 4th April 7-9pm
7th April-2nd May
Tuesday-Sunday 11am-6pm
Roberts and Robbins
SVA, 4 John Street,Stroud GL5 2HA
For this two-part exhibition Andy Holden will present two collaborations which both expound on the impact of technology on the landscape and mental ecology of rural Britain; firstly with the implementation of the enclosures act in the 1830’s and secondly with the introduction of broadband to the provinces at the end of the twentieth century.
The first collaboration is with Ivy Leeson (1909-2012), the grandmother of Holden’s partner George Leeson. The gallery display is centred on enlarged prints taken from the drawings she made in her late nineties after buying a laptop and teaching herself to use the internet and MS Paint. These are exhibited alongside a set of new sculptures made from re-claimed telegraph poles turned into possible vertical stanzas, recalling the repeated block forms of seminal Carl Andre works. Other elements in the ensemble include a new knitted textile wall hanging depicting the division of the village of Helpston, John Clare’s home territory, before and after the enclosure act.
The second collaboration, taking over the Brunel-designed Goods Shed, is with Secluded Brontë; a trio comprising of the legendary London improvisers the Bohman Brothers and Richard Thomas, whose conceptual scripts and object-oriented musical performances have been providing synaptic re-wirings in the public houses of London and further afield for many a year. The Goods Shed will become a set for a work-in-progress film, which loosely takes the form of a television sitcom set around the time of the Swing Riots. The film will see text broken down to the point of absurdity; spam, algorithms, high-end garden furniture, broadband, birdsong, the industrial revolution, and the life of John Clare and his descent into madness.
Andy Holden is an artist based in Bedford, UK, whose work spans a number of divergent mediums; from large scale sculpture and installation, to painting, pop music, lectures and performances, films and theatrical productions. Recent exhibitions have included Towards a Unified Theory of MI!MS at Zabludowicz Collection, London and Spike Island, Bristol (2013-14), Chewy Cosmos Thingly Time at Kettles Yard Cambridge (2011), and Art Now: Andy Holden, Tate Britain, (2010). Performances: Lecture on Nesting in collaboration with his father Peter Holden for Performa 13, New York, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men at ICA London, 2012, and a tour of the UK performing at only artist-run spaces with his band The Grubby Mitts in 2014.
BRICKHOUSE is a London based curatorial project founded by Guy Gormley and Thomas Bush.
Angel Fase
Saturday 4th April 9pm-3am
SVA, 4 John St, Stroud GL5 2HA
patchfinder.eu
topnice.org
For the opening of this year’s Site Festival, Top Nice siamese attaché Patchfinder has been summoned to twist the sonic fabric. In forming the argument, he has invited minds and bodies including: Mixed Feelings, Vera Modena, Rice From Your Grave, Astrid Gnosis, Lap-See Lam, Dying Breed, and MaxxxBass. Proceedings will close with headline live set by Inga Copeland and graveyard DJ set from Akilah.
RSVP site@sva.org.uk
Copeland Book Market 2015
Matchstick Books, Tom Barnett and HATO Press
Saturday 4th April 4-9pm
Duffle, 2 John Street, Stroud GL5 2HA
www.copelandbookmarket.com
www.matchstickbooks.tumblr.com
www.coldendrystone.tumblr.com
www.hatopress.net / www.scorcese.hatopress.net
We return to Stroud with guests including Rye Dag Holmboe, co-founder of Matchstick Books which publishes collaborations between poets and artists. He is working with Copeland’s Guy Robertson to bring together a selection of books and a discussion unpacking experimental approaches to illustration in publishing. Artist Tom Barnett, as his persona Colden Drystone, will create a site-specific performance in response to the selection of books. HATO press accompany us with drinks relating to their new publication Cooking with Scorcese and Others, a visual homage to classic films that celebrate food, featuring Goodfellas, The Breakfast Club and Babette's Feast and others.
Photo by Alex F. Webb.
Your Beating Heart
Saturday 4th April 6-9pm
10a John Street, Stroud GL5 2HA
An interactive digital installation that combines letterpress printing, data technology and the pulse of the globe. Join Matt Fawkes, Sarah Dixon, Richard Matthews and Tom Denley at the beginning of this two month project that seeks to make poetry from computer code and invites an international community to engage with visitors to the Site Festival. The results will be shown over the Open Studios weekends during May. To participate online: www.yourbeatingheart.co.uk
MycoCulture
The Art, Design & Cultivation of Fungi (and other organisms)
Special opening: Saturday 4th April 7-9pm
Saturdays 4th, 11th, 18th April 10am-3pm or by appointment
Unit 23, Merrywalks,
King Street, Stroud GL5 3DA
MycoCulture is both exhibition and launch of the Fungusloci micro-farm. Artist and permaculture practitioner Dominic Thomas has designed and built a sustainable micro-farm in which oyster mushrooms are cultivated on spent coffee grounds from local cafes. To celebrate the launch of this new urban food project Dominic has curated an exhibition of art and design inspired by the world of mycology and microbiology. Fungusloci is a project of Sustainable Creativity CIC and has been realised with the help of Stroud District Food Grants.
Meet the Makers
Wild Boar
Saturday 4th April 7-9pm
27 High Street, Stroud
Wild Boar is proud to host a “meet the makers” event as part of Site Festival 2015. Meet some of the artists and makers whose work is for sale at Wild Boar.
Plus more on the same evening at:
Made in Stroud, 16 Kendrick Street, Stroud
Fourteen, 14 Kendrick Street, Stroud
After the Animal
Special opening: Saturday 4th April 7-9pm
1st-30th April
29 High Street, Stroud GL5 1AJ
20th-25th April
Monday-Saturday 10am-5pm
The Subscription Rooms, George Street,
Stroud, GL5 1AE
T. 01453 760900
Sometimes it’s hard to know whether one is chasing the animal inside or pursuing imaginary beasts. Is mankind’s fascination with all that is wild a focused way of understanding ourselves? An experimental project space in an empty shop in Stroud High Street will provide the space and starting point for artists to explore this idea further and collaborate to make new work during the Site Festival. The culminating work will be shown in an exhibition at the end of the festival. Featuring work by Jo Casling, Adam White, Holly Marsh, Zoe Heath, Aimee Lax, Alison Cockcroft, Emily Joy, Kim Francis, Paul Grellier, Roger Jones and Simon Ryder. With spoken word events by Rick Vick, Eley Furrell and others
We Are All Haunted Animals
Adam White and Amaury Blow
4th April-31st May
Special opening: Saturday 4th April 7-9pm
Ale House
9 John Street, Stroud GL5 2HA
Giant innovative watercolours developed over 20 years by humble watercolourist Adam White. The Artist addresses the aberrant mythologies of Science and concentrated, viscous, haunted tales of love and loss. Adam’s work is also informed by fossils and minerals, prehistoric art and laced with humour, necessary mischievousness and the callous pursuit of aesthetics. Amaury Blow will be joining Adam White with his animal inspired sculpture pieces.
Jacqueline Kroft & The Sensations
Saturday 4th April 8-9pm
Ale House, 9 John Street, Stroud GL5 2HA
Jacqueline Kroft & The Sensations will be performing songs from her CD ‘Woven’, a delicately crafted, multi-layered, alternative pop/jazz funk album from an accomplished and inventive artiste. Classically trained, Jacqueline Kroft moved into jazz thanks to meeting musicians such as Bill Evans, Stan Getz and Chet Baker in Canada. She toured Europe and wrote songs and sessioned with numerous artists from Sony and Warner Brothers as well as Nina Hagen and Nena’s producer, Manne Praeker. Jacqueline Kroft has produced five albums, two singles, written a film score for Mr Right, and the lyrics for the theme music to the Forsyte Saga, sung by Bryn Terfel and composed by Geoffrey Burgon. Her latest album, Woven, blends all of her musical interests with an electronic soundscape - the result is as warm, deep and approachably individual as Jacqueline herself.
Free
Cream
1st April-31st May
Special opening: Sunday 5th April 4-6pm
Tuesday to Saturday 11am-11pm, Sundays 11am-9pm Closed Mondays
Bisley House, Middle Street, Stroud, GL5 1DZ
www.robbinsandroberts.com
www.bisleyhousecafe.co.uk
An exhibition of work by artists Lorraine Robbins and Soozy Roberts, including photographs, drawings and collage, within a relaxed cafe/bar/restaurant setting.
All Vinyl Sunday Gospel Service
Sunday 5th April 12noon
SVA, 4 John Street, Stroud GL5 2HA
All Vinyl Gospel Sunday Service, with Nick Buckle, Neil Walker and Co. Early afternoon service of vinyl rarities including Gospel Soul, Born Again Funk, Funk Hymnal and Gospel Blues…Accompanied by a traditional soul food lunch consisting of fried chicken, collard greens, breaded fried okra and cornbread…
Image: Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal. Numero Group
Coming up in WEEK 2: Monday 6th – Sunday 12th April
Stroud Jazz Sessions presents Karen Street
Thursday 9th April 8.30-11pm
SVA, 4 John Street, Stroud GL5 2HA
Tickets £5 (£3 performers) on the door
Stanley Kerr
11th April-25th April
Kendrick Street Gallery, 20 Kendrick St, Stroud GL5 1AA
ryotaro, Keiko Yamaguchi with Sean Roe
host the John Street Social Club
Friday 10th April 7-11pm
SVA, 4 John Street, Stroud GL5 2HA
£1 membership on the door
Man Up, Jonny Fluffypunk!
Saturday 11th April 3pm
SVA, Goods Shed rehearsal space, Stroud GL5 3AP
Tickets: £5 advance, £7 on door
Advanced tickets can be bought online here or from Trading Post, 26 Kendrick Street GL5 1AQ
Police and Thieves
Mockers Club Night
Saturday 11th April 9pm till late
Twisted Fix, 27a Nelson Street, Stroud GL5 2HH
Tickets: £5 on the door
Carnage Cabaret
Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip, Hamish Guerrini and Andy Dunn (Mad Cows), Guy Thompson, (UK Air Guitar Champion) plus a few little surprises…
Saturday 11th April 8pm til late
SVA, 4 John Street, Stroud GL5 2HA
Tickets: £8 advance, £10 on door
Advanced tickets can be bought online here or from Trading Post, 26 Kendrick Street GL5 1AQ
Download Site Festival Programme here
Site Festival 1-30 April
The Site Festival has moved to April this year with a wide spectrum of exhibitions and events spread throughout the month. The Open Studios will still be taking place in the two middle weekends of May.
The festival has its roots in contemporary visual arts but over the years there has been a blurring of boundaries with many cross overs with music, film, poetry, and theatre. This is reflected within the five week programme which kicks off with The Voyeurs, Brickhouse, Top Nice/Pathfinder and Andy Holden’s collaborative installation with the Bohman Brothers and Richard Thomas in John Street and the Goods Shed. Will Gregory Moog Ensemble will beheadlining in Week 4 for the Resound weekend of experimental music.
The Site Festival launch is on Saturday 4 April 6pm till late. Brickhouse will be presenting an exhibition of new work by Andy Holden and there'll be many other exhibitions and events taking place on the night in town culminating with the 'Top Nice/Pathfinder ' after party through to the early hours...
Keep an eye on the website and emails for updates. You can access all events online through facebook and sitefestival.org.uk.
Download Site Festival Programme here
