Stuff Happens Here is a project by artist Esther Collins, working with young people aged 18 to 24 on the Isle of Sheppey to develop practical skills and creative ideas.
The project included a series of creative sessions, including; artist Hannah Lees introducing her practice and taking the group around Sheerness in search of old-fashioned graffiti (carved into benches and brick walls) to take rubbings; artist and fishmonger Sam Curtis joining to explore his unique way of working, introduce his Centre for Innovative and Radical Fishmongery, and make prints using squid ink and fish scales; working with London-based graphic design studio work-form, using collected objects from the streets and parks of Sheerness to make monoprints of letterforms for a new typeface – Sheppey Sans; illustrator, printmaker and antique dealer Jo Waterhouse speaking about balancing her creative work with antique dealing and exploring methods for creating powerful displays of objects; and artist, writer and filmmaker Andrew Kötting sharing a selection of his favourite films on the theme of ‘Fairground’ and talking to the group about making and curating film.
Building up to the groups project for Tate Exchange, Put your face in the hole, Esther and curator Matthew de Pulford introduced the British Film Institute’s Britain Online archive, with the group mading their own selections, and artist Dylan Shipton visited to consider how artworks can create a space for viewing and collaborate on the design and construction of the walls for their show.
Stuff Happens Here is suppoerted by Ideas Test, The National Lottery, University of Kent, Kent County Council, Screen Archive South East, and Sheppey Matters. With thanks to Lux, Guy Sherwin, Peter Gidal, and Mr Mantle.
Put your face in the hole is the name of Stuff Happens Here’s stall for Fairground at Tate Exchange.
It takes as inspiration the photo-opportunity amusement in which fairground visitors can poke their face through a screen to temporarily adopt a new body or be placed in another landscape.
The stall is made up of a set of structures which emphasise what you see when you put your face through the hole, as much as how you look. Through specially designed ‘viewing holes’, visitors are invited to watch short films selected by the group from the BFI’s Britain Online archive to reflect their interests as they have developed over the project.
Part of Fairground – with Christ Church University, the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent, People United and Valleys Kids.
Esther Collins is an artist interested in curating situations that encourage people to share information and stories, finding out what they have in common. She produced Resort, a printed guide to Thanet, through gathering opinions and anecdotes from local people in Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs. She also recruited a team of KLAT artists to interview local residents in Hackney from a cardboard covered mobile hut, offering a cup of tea and cake in exchange for their conversation.