Spot Light on USURP Art Gallery

“Usurp produces exhibitions, performances, film and sound art events, and facilitates artist residencies. Open to experimental ideas in all media, Usurp supports artist to work with communities for social change, actively encouraging a wide range of audiences to participate in the creation of art works that challenge conformity, prejudice and discrimination. “

Since launching in february 2010, hundreds of visitors have passed through our door, from locals to those who travel to see us, from artists to the community. The debut exhibition “Naissance” included the work of Mona Hatoum, Disinformation, Chila Burman, Jess Hurd, Alia Syed, Matt Jordan, Dulari Summaria, Nazneen Ayub-Wood, Sousan Luqman, Usurp, Vistamundi, Steve Beresford, The Pardhan Gond Collective, Tokyo Rinpa Eshidan. This showed harrow its place in Modern art and displayed the diversity of local and global artists. Usurp’s next exhibition was a solo show by Cathy Ward. Her work “intertwines mysterious drawings of convoluted masses of hair with symbol laden landscape installations”. For imagery from past events visit www.usurp.org.uk

And now for something a bit different

Currently showing at the Gallery is *ahem* Myself and another young artist, Natalie Leer. The launch was a great success with the sun shinning, spritzers flowing and the reggae pumping, the gallery was flooded with a young contemporary crowd. The art was contrasting and the performers were chilled with an acoustic performance by Lora     and poetry by Steve Tasane. Of course them emphasis is on the art work. For this exhibition Natalie Leer has experimented widely with UV elements and digitally manipulated photography. Her electric, vivid colours nicely contrast my work which adopts traditional colours and tones. obsessed with natural materials and recycled objects, my work embraces the old and injects some contemporary world issues.  It is sickly sweet with dark secrets.

The Current exhibition runs untill Wed 9th June 2010, The Gallery is open 12-8pm daily

The gallery also holds events weekly. Most recently a live art performance outside the Gallery called Shop Bought, Custom Made,  an ongoing collaborative work by Usurp artists. A mannequin is the centrepiece of the exhibition and will be painted, customised, taken apart, and put together again.

Another notable regular event is the Last Sunday of every month where experimental music meets local community. there is a full article on this event and previous of its kind below.. well worth a read and a visit!!

ahhhh what else… oh yeah, forthcoming events…

Well as soon as my exhibition is over *weep* we welcome the onset of Harrow Open Studios. When local artists all over Harrow open up the doors of their homes and studios to the general public. I’d love to open my lovely pint sized studio shed, but maybe next year. This year however you can see two local artists,  Ann Burnham and Jane Pomiankowski, exhibiting at the Gallery. Ann’s work includes,  Etching, linocut and collagraph prints inspired by landscape and observed patterns of light, contrast and texture. Jane works with fine and sterling silver, semi precious
beads and pearls.

The studios are open on:

Saturday 12 June 11 – 6 , Sunday 13 June 11 – 6 , Monday 14 June 11 – 6 , Saturday 19 June 11-6 ,Sunday 20 June 11-6

Events for your calendar include

3rd July 2010 shows The Launch of “A Whisper in Shallow Window” , this collaborative project has produced a short film inspired by the photography of Daniel Ackie and the writings of the Scrybe.  Again there is an article below which shows some of my photography from the shoot. This exhibition continued untill the 17th July 2010.

23rd July 2010 marks the beginning of an exhibition, “MetroLand”, celebrating the work of a group of unaccompanied minors living in Harrow who have taken part in workshops run by Poulomi, Natalie and myself exploring written word and stop motion as a media for story telling… yet again there are weekly updates on our progress below.

Also, don’t forget our monthly event “The Last Sunday” and events in the pipeline which include film showings, community art projects etc. Keep an eye open on www.usurp.org.uk and join us on facebook.

MetroLand via MediaBox (II)

Week two of the MetroLand project which, incase you’re not following, is a project run by Usurp Artists and funded by MediaBox. The project is working with refugees in Harrow to enhance their Art skills and in the meantime, interact with them, improve their english, eat together and have fun. This week was a lot easier and I absolutely love working in this way with young adults. We worked with photography, using a digital SLR to take portraits of each participant, we asked the group to think about something, either a good memory, or bad, a feeling or of something significant in their lives. The portrait would depict this thought and the group could look at the photographs and use words to describe how the person felt and what they were thinking. Most of the time they were right, and for the times they weren’t they learned how people can cover up their emotions , this will become really important in the following weeks. we did another small excercise where the group wrote “me” in the middle of a page and used words to describe themselves, they did this in english and in their own languages.

I really enjoyed this weeks session, I felt integrated with the group and much more confident, I hope I have started to buildup the trust we all need to have in people so we dont feel so alone.

MetroLand via MediaBox (I)

This week marks the beginning of a project being run in Harrow by USURP artists Poulomi Desai and myself in collaboration with Toby Benedetto, a London-based journalist, and Harrow Youth Services. The project, funded by MediaBox, works with refugees in the Harrow area who have either been rescued from trafficking, been sent unaccompanied as minors to the UK or fled war-torn countries. The aim is to communicate their stories through animation and film, in order for them to achieve a Bronze Arts Award, which compliments their studies and could lead to future opportunities within the arts. Through this process the group will get to know each other and us, and hopefully support each other on their journey’s. This week we opened up communication by discussing story timelines. Each participant wrote about their lives before coming to the UK, special moments, what has happened since they got here and their hopes for the future. Then they worked together to find words to describe how they felt or would have felt at each moment. Another group learned techniques for stop motion animation. By writing their names letter at a time, they learned basic skills of using a digital SLR and a video camera. They are all looking forward to learning more camera skills.

I’ll admit to finding the first session hard. I have never working in this way before, or honestly, with young adults with this background. But they are just like any other group, some are quiet, some are more confident, some will take on different aspects of the project, there are leaders and team players. For me it’s now a matter of realising that similarity and learning from the differences. I am looking forward to the rest of the project and becoming part of the process by which these young people can express their stories through art.

Keep an eye on my blog for weekly updates on the project.

Also check out www.media-box.co.uk for more information on other projects being run in the UK.

visit www.usurp.org.uk for more information on events and projects.