Festival of Thrift

The Transporter Project will be part of the Festival of Thrift at Lingfield Point in Darlington on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd September so we thought we would start by sending out some info about the festival. Transporter will be hosting a stand which will encompass several different ways for you to engage with the project......

• a chill out zone where you can find out more about the Transporter project through access to our Flickr site, read through books and articles that have inspired the project, find out more about the artists and organisations we have worked with so far and what we have learnt....all in a comfy surrounding with free tea and biscuits!!
• access to artists workshops where you can learn some traditional skills and how artists are utilising these skills in a contemporary way to create their artwork. SEE WORKSHOP DETAILS BELOW
• take part in the creation of a large scale artwork by artists Sam Taylor and Suzanne Hutton

Workshops available -

SATURDAY 21st SEPTEMBER -

 

Artist Iolanda Rocha will show you how to recycle jute yarn, fabric and plastic bags into different weaved forms using a straight forward, easy to learn technique based in traditional weaving.

 

Iolanda will show how she uses these traditional techniques in her contemporary arts practice. Workshop spaces are strictly limited so please make sure you book! 

 

Times 11.30am – 1pm and 2pm – 3.30pm on Saturday only!

Location Studio meeting room 4

 

 

SUNDAY 22nd SEPTEMBER -

Engage your senses with textures and learn the simplicity of old techniques by learning the types of elegant sculptures that can be created with paper, with expert Yvette Hawkins.

But you better be in quick as spaces in this free workshop are limited.

Times:11.30am – 1pm and 2pm – 3.30pm on Sunday only!
Location: Room 4 Studios

For further details on our other workshops and to book visit -

www.festivalofthrift.co.uk 

Skyping Lima - update!

We held the skype session between Newcastle University 2nd year Fine Art students and Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru Industrial Design and Graphic Design students on Friday 3rd May.

The session allowed the students to hold a live discussion based around their own art work, how their course is structured and what they plan to do after uni. Suzanne gave an overview of the Transporter project and why we were working with the 2nd year students, Kitty Langton (student) gave an overview of the 'Strand' module and what they had learnt so far and how it was helping them develop their artwork and Ella Dorton (student) gave an overview of the Fine Art course and how it is taught in England.

This led onto the Lima students giving an overview of their projects and they both compared the differences with the courses i.e. lima study for 5-6 years and specialise in a specific artform and are not able to work cross artforms like in England. Lima students however have a much stronger focus on learning their skill and perfecting their craft before focussing on their own personal ideas development whereas Newcastle students are much more focussed on the concepts of their artwork and tend to learn specific skills as and when they need to.

The students asked specific questions about each others work and posted comments on the Flickr site which you can find here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/67813410@N05/

We are keen to explore the potential for students to take part in an exchange at each other's universities so that they can benefit from the different approaches to art courses.

regards
Transporter project!!

Skyping Lima!

As part of our 'Strand' project with students from Newcastle University we will be doing a skype exchange with students from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru in Lima this Friday (3rd May).

Suzanne and I visited Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru during our residency in Peru in 2011. During our visit we met with some of the tutors who gave us a tour of the different departments and we talked about various projects that they were working on with their students and local communities  and how these might link with our Transporter project- an example of which can be found at - https://www.facebook.com/ArteSurChincha

The skype exchange will consist of the students commenting on each others work, prior to the skype session, through our Flickr site - http://www.flickr.com/photos/67813410@N05/ with further dicussion during the skype exchange itself. We will also be exploring how the students programmes compare and differ and learn about each others culture and how they approach artisitc projects.

Here are some examples of the students work and we will post another update on this once the skype session has taken place!!!

Until next time.....

Transporter project!!

Interesting projects!

Hello again, a quick update from the Transporter Project with a list of projects and websites which you may be interested in....

A great community project building a greenhouse from plastic bottles
http://www.the4csne.com/greenhouse.html

Go back to basics and make your own book!
http://theresaeaston.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/print-book-making-36-lime-street/

Uniting new and old technologies, Yvette Hawkins and Susannah Pickering - whose work incorporates books, poetry and traditional crafts - will start a poem thread on Twitter with clothing as the central theme.
http://www.bookapothecary.co.uk/#!blog/cs0g

An interesting article about sustainability
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2013/mar/18/environment-reporting-arts-council-sustainability

Northeast Permaculture - Since January 2005, permaculture activists throughout the Northeast have been meeting and actively creating a network for mutually supporting each other and advancing permaculture solutions among the wider public in our area
http://northeasternpermaculture.wikispaces.com/

A link to a great project one of our Newcastle University Fine art students recently attended
http://www.felinuchaf.org/

Enjoy the Easter Weekend!
Transporter Project

Newcastle University 'Strand' Project

We are working with 15 Newcastle University 2nd yr Fine Art students as part of our creative exchange element of the Transporter project. The 'Strand' project, which runs alongside the students studio practice, allows us to share information, knowledge and skills learnt during our time in Peru and Berlin (as well as the developments within our arts practices), with the students to help them develop ideas and new skills.

They’ve had some great ideas and are inspiring us with new ideas too- we are encouraging the students to learn a new skill or develop a body of research on a new area during the Strand. They are responding well to this and some are integrating the project into their studio practice as they discover a new interest or area they wish to work in.

We are uploading images of the students work onto our flickr photostream so please have a look and comment to give them feedback on their ideas so far! http://www.flickr.com/photos/transporterproject/sets/72157633054505042/ Any signposts to artists, books etc to help them with their research is welcomed too!

The Student project aims and learning outcomes are - 

•Develop an understanding of different crafts and skills, what role they play in cultural heritage and whether they can inspire contemporary art

•Gain a greater understanding of other art forms

•Experiment and collaborate with other artists/peers.

•Learn, share skills in arts and crafts such as weaving, paper making, pottery, woodwork etc

•Learn new ways of seeing and doing through cultural exchange and researching their own cultural heritage

•Understand issues surrounding sustaining local and international traditional art forms and cultures

•Develop understanding of sustainable arts practise and broader environmental issues

•Question and explore their relationship to their environment.

•Self direct their studies and research

•Group work and critical feedback

•Create a body of research, ideas and experiments which explore new ground for the student

•Create a ‘resolved’ new art work/design/prototype (either individually or collaboratively) for public showing.

CREATIVE EXCHANGE @ HIGHGREEN, TARSET Part 2

 

 CREATIVE EXCHANGE @ HIGHGREEN, TARSET : EXPLORING CRAFT, CULTURE & THE ENVIRONMENT

As part of the TRANSPORTER project, artists and curators Suzanne Hutton and Sam Taylor will be facilitating a second skill sharing and making workshop on Saturday 3rd November 2012, 10-4pm which explores how contemporary art can be developed from traditional skills and craft and through the reusing of waste or discarded materials, looking at the theme of sustainability.

Sam and Suzanne will talk about the Transporter project, highlighting their recent artist residency at Kunst Stoffe in Berlin, an arts resource centre dedicated to an artistic, aesthetic and sociological exploration of reusing waste and discarded materials and presenting their current practice as a result of this residency.

Participants will share their own skills and develop new work in the peaceful surroundings of Highgreen. We encourage you to bring your own waste materials and something to the session so that we can learn from you too! This could be an idea or a material you are currently working with or a piece of work to show others. The aim of the session is to develop your own creative practice by working with new materials or pushing your current ideas about craft and art.

Note: Some materials will be provided. Refreshments will be provided but please bring lunch.
Car share is available from Newcastle/Gateshead –please just ask!

FREE but booking essential TO BOOK: Email suzanne.hutton@gmail.com or call Suzanne on 07900 147628 or call Janet (VARC) on 01434 240822
TRANSPORTER was devised by artists Suzanne Hutton and Sam Taylor as a way to learn and improve as artists whilst sharing skills and knowledge with others- it looks across wide subject areas such as sustainability, the environment, craft/skills and how these differ and compare across cultures. The project will develop as the artists develop. Transporter has its own blog and flickr websites which document the skills, crafts and ideas discovered by the project so far: www.transporterproject.blogspot.com | www.flickr.com/photos/67813410@N05/sets/

The Transporter project is supported by Arts Council England.
This workshop is held in association with VARC (Visual Arts in Rural Communities) and with thanks also to Highgreen Estate for providing the venue.

Update since our return to the UK & the next phase of Transporter...

Spending time at Sachaqa Centro De Arte and our experiences in San Roque de Cumbaza, Tarapoto, Chazuta and Lamas has allowed us to take a fresh approach to our art making, giving us time and space to learn to just relax and not force creativity! Being away from anything familiar really made you think about yourself as a person, who you are and who you want to be- something we didn’t expect! The peaceful and undisturbed surroundings were AMAZING and the way Trina and Daniel have set up the centre in a very relaxed and informal manner means you are free to work as and when you please. We were so inspired by the beauty of the place as well as the sounds and movement from the river, weather, trees and wildlife. There was thunder and lightning like we’d never experienced before, frogs as loud as horns, the biggest cockroaches we've ever seen, an orchestra from nature every night and the most beautiful coffee, pineapple and chocolate we’ve ever tasted!

Since leaving Peru we have been developing new work from ideas inspired by our time there which we did not have time to realise whilst we were there. We are currently looking at creating sculptural work from handmade paper we made whilst working with local artisans in Lamas – looking into the techniques of paper engineering and origami. We are also developing a sound and film piece made from the footage and recordings that we took as we travelled around Peru and during our daily walks around San Roque de Cumbaza where we were based. This new work will form the basis of the exhibition we are hoping to deliver in March 2012 (date and place tbc). We will post more information about this exhibition as soon as we have it!

Since our last posting we have been in contact with Lima University’s sculpture department and Axis Arte (www.blog.pucp.edu.pe/blog/axisarte ) whom we met just before our return to the UK. We are organising an online exchange between students from Lima University and Newcastle University and will be using the theme of sustainability within traditional art forms as a starting point from which to develop a relationship. The students will share ideas and thoughts around this subject and also discuss the differences and similarities between how art courses are taught in the UK and Peru.

Our next stop on the Transporter journey is to Berlin in August 2012 where we will be artists in residence in Kunst-Stoffe, an arts organisation that looks at the creative re-examination and re-use of recycled materials. While we are there we will make work inspired by our travels so far and immerse ourselves in their culture.

We will add more info to our blog as we develop this project so keep checking in with us and remember our Flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/67813410%40N05/ ) where we have recently added some video footage of local artisans singing about their passion for the work that they do!!

HELLO and INTRODUCTION to theTRANSPORTER project

Hello, welcome to our blog for the Transporter Project!

We hope we can provide an interesting read for those of you who wish to follow us on our adventure - due to start officially in 2 weeks time when we'll be flying off to Peru! See below for more info.... and if you would like to see more images of our research an artwork then please follow us on flickr too

Background:

As artists having grown up during the introduction of the world wide web, the digital age and globalisation, we feel it is just as important to value and utilise the local, handmade, personal side to creativity. We know that the desire for the original and bespoke is a growing market as people begin to understand the impact mass production is having on the environment and local business. It is this interest in getting back to basics, valuing tradition, learned artforms, skilled crafts and working with the environment around us, that has led to the development of 'Transporter'. We want to look, learn and develop new work that goes back to the artist as maker and collaborate with others to raise the profile of local traditions that make an area, place, and country unique.

Overview of project:

The project will allow Suzanne Hutton and Sam Taylor to be artists in residence at Sachaqa Art Centre (SAC) in Peru and deliver an engagement programme. We will conduct research, create new work and explore sustainability; looking at customs, traditional arts practices and skills and their relationship to the environment. We will spend time with SAC's founders, their resident artists and the local communities sharing skills, knowledge and inspirations in order to develop our own arts practises. From this research and dialogue we will create new collaborative art works whilst working on a variety of other projects in Peru.

On our return to the UK we will evaluate our time, continue to develop work in the studio, curate an exhibition and related talk and deliver a number of creative sessions and presentations to artists and students at The Shed Gateshead, Gateshead College, Newcastle University and International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies (The En-compass Project) in order to pass on knowledge and gain feedback on what we have learnt. The idea is that this is the 1st Phase in an ongoing research project to collate information about traditional crafts, skills across the world and compare creativity within cultures, whilst highlighting issues around sustainibility and the environment. There is also a FlickR page set up called 'TRANSPORTERproject' which will hopefully act as an online sketchbook where others can comment on our finds.

Main aims of TRANSPORTER project:

• To develop our artistic practise through collaboration with artists (in residence, local artisans and community members), developing new skills in local indigenous artforms and crafts

• Develop links between young people and artists from different countries

• Share and transport knowledge between artists/communities and countries

• Learning new ways of seeing and doing through cultural exchange, researching intangible cultural heritage

• Assisting with development of eco village as a way to research and create new work

• Highlight and raise the profile of sustainable arts practise and people’s relationship to their environment.

• Experiment and promote collaboration across cultures and art form.

• Produce a publication and exhibition as a legacy

• Promote further development exploring the idea of sustainable arts practise and learning from traditions.

• Develop rednile’s international links and Factory Nights programme

This project has been funded by Arts Council England with additional support from rednile projects, Sachaqa Arts Centre Peru, VARC and Newcastle University.