HIGH AND DRY

High and Dry Poster 

As part of my uni course we were tasked with curating an exhibition in groups around the idea of kitchen heterotopia. I of course had no idea what this meant but was keen to learn more about it. When we were first assigned to our groups we collectively decided to go away and think individually about what we wanted our exhibition to be and look like and then we had a group meeting to discuss some of the ideas we had and make a brainstorm and plan of action for the weeks ahead. I had various ideas about locations, I was thinking more about probability and being able to make the show happen and be successful in a short space of time that we were given. My ideas included, turning a caravan into a mobile kitchen exhibition and taking it on tour for a week, this became probable with the variable of needing to find someone able to drive it to different locations every day of the week. I also thought about using a church kitchen, almost like an art soup kitchen, thinking about homelessness and the idea that a church can be a home away from home, but to me this idea felt lacking and too understated for the ambition that myself and the group wanted to aim for. During the group meeting where I presented my ideas, I randomly thought about having the exhibition on a beach, with the work to be washed away by the oceans tide. 

High and Dry 

We started thinking about the destruction of a typical domestic home, because we were ultimately destroying the kitchen and the valuable work with the ocean. We linked this destruction of the typical home to the kitchen, where families are brought together through food, one thing that is a constant in any culture in the world. Unfortunately, we live in a time where there is a massive refugee crisis, people being ripped out of their homes, some of them venturing across oceans to start new, only to die in the process and be washed up ashore, this another link to the washed-up kitchen. 

We also thought about other forms of destruction in the home such as homelessness and domestic abuse. The more we talked on the subject, the more links we could find with what we were doing and we got really excited and confident to get going on the project. In the meeting we decided that the place would take place on Brighton beach, due to it being at a good distance from Farnham and it was also quite a touristic place that we knew would have a crowd. 

Through the use of curatorspace we were able to put out an open call for artists (which was really handy and easy- would definitely recommend if your curating or trying to get your work shown) we had some really good submissions and had to narrow it down to those we felt fitted better with our themes, the artists were Rania Atef, Alice Castiglione, Jim Hobbs and Mathilda Oosthuizen. Please make sure to check out their work! some really amazing and inspiring pieces of work!

We used discarded kitchen appliances in the show to act as a base and frame to hang/install the art work, somewhat dysfunctional but extremely interesting, much like the idea of kitchen heterotopia. One thing I have learnt so far this year is how important community is, I needed the appliances for free as we are poor art students, and so I made a post on facebook and soon enough people from and around Farnham were coming forward with literally hundreds of offers to have their old machines!

The install was a tough one as the weather was extremely harsh and we ended up having to take down early as a storm rolled in but I am so proud of all the work that went into the day, both on and off the scenes! Please take a look at the Instagram @highanddryexhibtion for more!