Festival

Whitstable Biennale 2014

Welcome to the Association Area

John Walter, Turn My Oyster Up, 2014. Photograph: Bernard G Mills

John Walter, Turn My Oyster Up, 2014. Photograph: Bernard G Mills

Laura Wilson, Black Top (Reading), 2014. Image: Bernard G Mills

Laura Wilson, Black Top (Reading), 2014. Image: Bernard G Mills

Louisa Fairclough, Absolute Pitch, 2014. Photo: Bernard G Mills

Louisa Fairclough, Absolute Pitch, 2014. Photo: Bernard G Mills

WB2014: Louisa Fairclough, Ben Judd, Richard Wilson, Martin John Callanan, Margaret Salmon, Rachel Lichtenstein

New work commissioned for Whitstable Biennale 2014 included Louisa Martin, Katrina Palmer, Louisa Fairclough, Margaret Salmon, Laura Wilson, and John Walter. 

On the last weekend of the festival, we presented 51° 21’ 45″ N, 1° 01’ 13″ E Whitstable Sounding: Rockets and Blue lights (close at hand) to warn steam boats of shoal water, by Richard Wilson and Zatorski + Zatorski. A performance taking place offshore to be viewed from the beach, the work brought historic steam ships to Whitstable, modified to become playable musical instruments, using steam whistles, bells, horns, hooters, sirens, and accompanied by flares. 

Central to Whitstable Biennale 2014 was a film programme put together by Mark Aerial Waller, entitled Welcome to the Association Area. Welcome to the Association Area presented new and classic artists’ film and video alongside science fiction tv, video sharing and digital photography to explore the disjunctures that distance us, and then connect us, to contemporary art. The programme included video sharer Wet Canuck; early video works by Vito Acconci and VALIE EXPORT, together with contemporary works made for the screen by Simon Martin and Eva Stenram.

Watch Richard Wilson, Louisa Fairclough and Ben Judd‘s Whitstable Biennale 2014 commissions.