Thursday 4th
October to Saturday 27th October
Dilston Grove Church, Southwark Park, London SE16
Span2 is a new international festival of performance art. Throughout the month
of October an impressive range of twenty-one artists will be making and showing
new site specific work at the evocative, Dilston Grove Mission Church, London
SE16. A listed building, this Italianate style church built in 1912 is noted
to be the first concrete building to be erected in London.
Curators Andre Stitt and Roddy Hunter have invited a range of artists to take part in four one week-residencies. Artists have been chosen whose work constitutes a 'span' in terms of their longevity and their commitment to art practice within their own communities at home and abroad. The aim of Span2 is to turn the spotlight on the process of making work as a vital ingredient of performance art by allowing the audience to experience the artist's process and looking at what happens when the artist works in a community rather than in isolation.
The magnificent decaying Dilston Grove Church is not an established venue and so is free from the boundaries of a traditional gallery space. All the artists taking part in Span2 have been asked to respond to a site and as the church is set to close its doors at the end of October 2001 this last show is seen as a grand finale.
Artists taking
part include:
· Tania Bruguera (Cuba) examines emigration as a phenomenon which has
affected Cuban culture and life.
· Ma Liuming (China) winner of the Venice Biennale in 1999, was imprisoned
in 1994 by the Chinese authorities for a performance investigating gender roles
in relation to repressed aspects of dominant culture.
· Richard Martel's (Canada) practice is fundamentally shaped by the political,
cultural and historical contours of living and working in Quebec.
· Kim Jones (USA) a Vietnam veteran who has developed celebrated series
works, including his ever evolving 'war drawings' and 'Mudman' performances
that relate to both personal and public understandings of violence.
· Rona Lee (UK) is an established artist whose recent work has been concerned
with exploring absence through use of light to conceal rather than reveal.
· Lone Twin (UK) formed in 1997 is a collaborative performance project
between Gregg Whelan and Gary Winters. Another chapter will be added to their
new series of works, developing their interests in contextual associations surrounding
Dilston Grove and its history.
· Stuart Brisley's (UK) work inquires into the relationships between
volition and compulsion that exist regardless of the veneer society projects
upon birth, death, sexuality and politics.
Other artists include:
· Mamiko Kawabata (Japan)
· Roi Varra (Finland)
· Scott Macleod (USA)
· Danny McCarthy (Ireland)
· Artur Tajber (Poland)
· Tanja Ostojic (Yugoslavia)
· Amouzou Glikpa (Togo)
· Boris Nieslony (Germany)
· Esther Ferrer (Spain)
· Kira O'Reilly (UK)
· Julie Bacon (UK)
· Tara Babel (N.Ireland)
· Brian Connolly (N.Ireland)
The curators Andre Stitt and Roddy Hunter are at the forefront of contemporary art performance today. In over twenty years, Stitt, currently Senior Lecturer of Time Based Practice at the University of Wales, Cardiff, has produced over three hundred works in major galleries, festivals and alternative spaces throughout the world. Roddy Hunter, lecturer in Visual Performance and a funded researcher at Dartington College of Arts, Devon has presented performances and installations, delivered lectures, academic papers, manifesto readings and published original research in the field of cross-artform practice since 1989. He has originated and coordinated combined arts initiatives such as Rootless '97 and Crossing the Cross-Roads: Live Art in 1998.
LISTINGS INFORMATION
Venue: Dilston Grove Church, adjacent to Abbeyfield Road, close Southwark Park,
London, SE16
Dates: Thursday
4,11,18,25 October
Talking Process: Discussion with the Artists at 7.30pm
Friday 5,12,19,26 October & Saturday 6,13,20,27 October
Open from 2pm (evening performances from 7.30pm)
Info Line: 020 7394 3452 or check www.span2.org for daily programme details
Tickets: Day Pass £8, £4 concs, Week Pass £20, £10 concs, Month Pass £50, £25 concs
How to get there:
Tube Surrey Quays/Canada Water
Bus 1,47,188,199,381,395,P13,P11
Rail: South Bermondsey
Parking off Hawkstone Road
For further information
and photographs please contact
Anna Arthur at AAPR on 020 7637 2994/07973-264 373
PROGRAMME
Symposium 4rd October
Performances 5th - 6th October
Brian Connolly
(N.Ireland)
Kim Jones (USA)
Lonetwin (UK)
Kira O'Reilly (UK)
Rona Lee (UK)
Symposium 11th
October
Performances 12th- 13th October
Danny McCarthy
(Ireland)
Esther Ferrer (Spain)
Artur Tajber (Poland)
Roi Varra (Finland)
Mamiko Kawabata (Japan)
Symposium 18th
October
Performances 19th - 20th October
Tania Bruguera
(Cuba)
Ma Liuming (China)
Richard Martel (Quebec)
Scott Macleod (USA)
Tanja Ostojic (Yugoslavia)
Symposium 25th
October
Performances 26th- 27th October
Tara Babel (N.Ireland)
Julie Bacon (UK)
Stuart Brisley (UK)
Amouzou Glikpa (Togo)
Boris Nieslony (Germany)