Making Space is a unique student exhibition.
Usually at this time of year, you would expect to see final year degree shows. Whilst no doubt the University of Leeds Art Department has been staging shows, the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery has done something different.
An open call sent to all University of Leeds students, whatever their level of study or degree course, resulted in the submission of almost 300 pieces from 80 artists. The result is an exhibition that is diverse in terms of courses, academic level and medium.
Clearly there was not enough room to display all the work that was put forward. The exhibition is all the more impressive as the curation was in the hands of a group of 4 students, under the guidance of freelance curator Courtney Spencer.
When I visited the gallery, I was shown around by Lucy Cameron, who alongside fellow students Ellie Boyce, Zofia Gmurek and Rosanna Martin, selected the 28 works that have been chosen to hang in the exhibition.
Curating an open call exhibition is no easy task. There was no theme. The only thing that unites these works is that students produced them. This follows on from the gallery’s earlier exhibition, Uz, Uz, Uz, which featured work by working class artists. The curator students did not know each other before the project. Lucy is completing a MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies, but the others were art-based undergraduates.
Lucy explained that the team had free rein in how they displayed the work and had to develop their own ideas about connections between the art.
Some very different works echo each other. Tess Hardy‘s Wait features an empty chair in a calm waiting area, opposite is the more frantic Ghost Sofa, a video installation by Emma Godwin. One section clearly has a connection through nature. Marcus Hill’s Soil Gazing Bench sits alongside Caitlin O’Doherty‘s Irish grass-dyed hanging, and Emily Wadsworth‘s painting of people and trees.
While most of the artists have just one piece on display, there are some that required two or more pieces for the artist’s work to be understood. The limbs of Wadsworth’s dancers reflect the limbs of her gnarled trees.
Although most of the artists are studying in the art faculty, about 20% are not. Some such as Adrian Lam, now studying a PHD in Mechanical Engineering, and Frances Lyne, studying English Literature and Spanish, did study art at foundation level before moving on to other disciplines.
On the other hand, Maryam Shakir is using art to explore her understanding of politics, her degree discipline. In her work, she investigates the intersection of political thought, individual experience and creative expression. Other artists such as Kelly Cumberland are exploring the intersection of art and science.
There is a wonderful mixture of media in the exhibition, another challenge in terms of how to display the art. Painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, sound installation, assemblage and moving image have all found their place. The arrangement of the work spoke to me of an understanding of colour and space. The student curators even had to choose what colour to paint a feature wall.
We are welcomed into the main exhibition space by the large, bright work of Molly Newham then led into calmer, cooler spaces.
More of Making Spaces
Participating artists are: Bex Blayney, Ella Brereton, Kelly Cumberland, Emma Godwin, James Goodchild, Ava Gray, Tess Hardy, Marcus Hills, Izzy Jones, Adrian Lam, Francesca Lynes, [Name withheld], Maya Neill, Melissa Nesbitt, Molly Newham, Caitlín O’ Doherty, Emily Ritchie, Maryam Shakir, Robin Stones, Janelle Villahermosa, Emily Wadsworth, Yun-Ling Wang.
This exhibition is a reminder that art can be a part of everyone’s life; that inter-disciplinary work can promote creativity and reflection.
Making Space runs until Saturday 29 August.
