June 2012

Phase 1 - update:

Exhibition

Well we have been hard at work since our last blog update making artwork and developing the project further. Due to various reasons we have not yet managed to organise our exhibition but we are looking to hold this towards the end of 2012 at a venue tbc.....we have one in mind but not yet confirmed so we shall keep you posted!!

The main themes of the exhibition will be -

Sustainable arts practices from around the world and what this means to artists

Our relationship to the environment and how it compares across the world

Looking back at our heritage and craft and presenting it in a contemporary way

Crossing cultures and skills sharing 

Below are some artists who will feature in the exhibition:

Jaime Miranda – Jaime is a sculptor and photographer whom we met during our 

residency at Sachaqa Arts Centre, Peru - http://www.jaimemiranda.com/

                               

                               

LEO – Leo lives and works between Berlin and London and is currently Artist in Resident
at VARC – Visual Arts in Rural Communities in Tarset, Northumberland
(www.varc.org.uk). Leo is interested in the current nature of environmental art and
public art. - www.cskx.org/leo

 

                                        

Trina Brammah – Trina is a painter and founder of Sachaqa Arts Centre .Trina works by collecting natural pigments from local river sources in the Peruvian jungle - http://www.trinabrammah777.blog.com/

                   

Testing out ideas at VARC (Visual Arts in Rural Communities)
In April – May 2012 we spent time with LEO in Tarset, Northumberland as part of his artists workshop programme. A group of us with various interests came together to make artwork inspired by the landscape. It was quite a short time scale but great to get stuck into creating something outside with the challenge of such a tight deadline. The images show what we were working on. The 'cuffed' treetrunks was an experiment with sightlines and viewpoints (and gold leaf!). The area of woodland we worked in was full of verticle lines and I wanted to cut across this with something- i also like the idea of 'ringing' the trees, to set them apart from the rest, if i'd had more time i was going ring all of the trees in that sightline. We've also been collecting platic strapping and plastic bags and creating smale scale experiments with proggy matting and weaving - with an aim that these would lead to a large scale installation. To see more images of our time at VARC visit our Flickr site.

International Skype exchange project with Lima and Newcastle University:

This is progressing well and we are looking to hold a skype session between Fine Arts Students from Lima University and Newcastle University in collaboration with David Butler in Oct/Nov 2012.

This online exchange will allow the students to discuss the theme of sustainability within their own practices and look at the differences between their work, culture, heritage, traditional skills and crafts and even the differences between their fine art courses.
This online exchange will form part of a larger project with Newcastle University students where they will be exploring the above themes through their own individual art practices in preparation for exhibiting the resulting art work as part of our exhibition in Dec 2012.

  

Transporter Interim Phase (Berlin):     
We have just received funding from Arts Council England to deliver an interim phase of the Transporter project (Hooray!) which will allow us to spend time at Kunst Stoffe in Berlin for 5 weeks in September 2012, deliver another series of workshops in the North East and develop a larger Phase 2 programme for next year.

Kunst Stoffe is an arts organisation that looks at the creative re-examination and re-use of recycled materials.

In Berlin we will spend a focussed amount of time resolving ideas, evaluating our experiences so far and realising artworks that epitomise Transporter in a visual way . We will create collaborative work inspired by Berlin and our travels so far in Peru, exploring how they could have resonance and meaning in both places. There will be a 5 day exhibition at the end of the residency to showcase our new work and as always during this residency we will post regular blogs about the artists we are meeting and the new skills we are learning.

During our residency we want to explore the idea of habitual waste in Berlin making artwork that responds to this and comparing it to the waste habits in Peru and England. We are interested in the social aspects of this topic and what we can learn about different cultures from their daily lives. We are keen to explore the functionality of waste – taking the material and creating something new and useful in a fun way i.e. weaving raincatchers from discarded bottles or strips of plastic, creating fantastical new landscapes from discarded images of Berlin or installations from recycled paper/cardboard to develop our skills in paper engineering and origami creating places to sit and reflect.

Here are some of our initial ideas......

 

  

Transporter Phase 2 -
As mentioned previously, we are currently developing Phase 2 of Transporter and hope to create a programme that will allow further exchanges and discussions to be made between the local, national and international links that we have made so far during the project. We hope to develop a wider discussion around the theme of sustainable arts such as ideas on the re-presenting of traditional craft and re-examining of waste materials.

As part of our interim phase funding we talking to a variety of organisations and artists who have similar interests and can widen our knowledge bank. We can then add this information and any skills to our blog and flickr site. We hope to develop a touring exhibition and develop a live exchange between artists and organisations from different countries.

Some of the organisations we are currently talking to are –

• VARC – Visual Arts in Rural Communities - www.varc.org.uk
• EiggBox – Isle of Eigg – http://www.eiggbox.com/
• Axis Artes and Lima University - http:blog.pucp.edu.pe/blog/axisarte
• Kunst Stoffe - http://www.kunst-stoffe-berlin.de/

As ever, we will update our blog as we go along and will post videos and images on our Flickr site.


If you think you have a project or an idea that would link to Transporter then do get in touch.

Peruvian Press!!

Here are some of the press cuttings that we received for the Lamas Sin Fronteras event in Peru. You can also see images from the event on our flickr account - http://www.flickr.com/photos/67813410%40N05/ .

We also managed to gain some air time on the local radio station and appeared on the popular local TV programme 'La Cocina de Manolo'!!!!

Day 4

Day 4

After two days of travelling and overnights stops in Lima and Tarapoto we are now in San Roque de Cumbaza where we will stay for the next 5 weeks and is home to Sachaqa Arts Centre.

Attached images are of the community we are staying in  - further pictures can be seen at our flickr account ... http://www.flickr.com/photos/67813410@N05/

Today we met Tomas (http://www.turismolamas.com/) who organises events and arts project in Lamas (a near by town). Thomas is really interested in the Transporter project and the work of rednile and our individual artwork and has agreed to help organise a Factory Night (FN) event. Many communities/towns were discussed but it was felt that Lamas was the most suitable place due to its already burgeoning cultural offer and a place that would attract more local people to this sort of event. Lamas is also famous for its folklore and preservation of Amazonian traditional culture. The concept of Factory nights is a new way of working for artists in Peru so we had to choose an area that would attract the most interest. We discussed many ideas in our pigeon Spanish, and with the help of many translators have narrowed down a variety of ways that FN may work –

·         an event where each person can create artwork as part of a large scale temporary installation or each person creates something new as an individual,

·         FN at a modern day stone castle built by a local businessman,

·         hand out disposable cameras to participants where they capture what makes their environment special – discussions lead from this,

·         day or night event where a variety of artists are invited to Sachaqa Arts Centre who have not been before to give artists talk about their work – introduces new artists to SAC and the eco village and creates networking opportunities. 

We are really aware of the slower pace of life here and realise that we also have to slow down and understand that there may be limitations to what we can achieve while we are here. (Its as far from Newcastle as you can get!!) Internet for example, is accessed through a dongle and is shared with other families and often do not work due to the torrential rain!! so if we don’t post for a while this will be why!

The people have all been so friendly so far and many are very creative, we met a sculptor the other day who was in the middle of making a didgeridoo and a local woman has offered to show us how to make the ceramic pots she was trying to sell us. We are due to visit Lamas on Wednesday to ascertain the right site and environment for Factory Nights so will look to update our blog again after that. Tomas has also asked us to be part of a local project in Lamas where they are trying to get 200 different wall designs painted by different artists so we are working on ideas for this.!!

Hasta luego!!

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WHERE WE ARE GOING - LOCATION AND STUDIOS

Location
San Roque de Cumbaza is situated 40 minutes outside the nearest town Tarapoto in the Northern Highland region of Peru

Sachaqa Arts Centre (SAC) is the first artist residence in the Peruvian jungle – a centre for the preservation of indigenous arts and the development and presentation of contemporary art forms, as well as a center promoting environmental awareness.

Studios