Launch Pad: CURIO CURIA

For our Autumn 2017 Launch Pad, Castlefield Gallery is excited to present CURIO CURIA, a collaboration between CG Associate member and multi-disciplinary artist Marie Jones (aka Kochi Kochi), and New York City born, Manchester-based artist Stina Puotinen.

Guest selector Kate Gray, Director of Collective Gallery (Edinburgh) and Matthew Pendergast, Castlefield Gallery’s Curator selected CURIO CURIA from CG Associate members’ submissions.

CURIO: a rare, unusual, or intriguing object.

CURIA: a curia, plural curiae, is an assembly, council, or court, in which public, official, or religious issues are discussed and decided.

Jones and Puotinen will use this Launch Pad as an opportunity to collaborate on a durational, evolving, and experiential sculptural installation, using Castlefield Gallery as their place of meeting and making from 1-10 September 2017.

CURIO CURIA will focus on where the artists’ individual practices connect through object and image making, allowing this collaborative process to be public as the work evolves. The pair will combine their collective experience manipulating found objects including sometimes foodstuffs, to create sculptural elements that play with distortion of scale, material, veracity and humour. Elements of the work will be added to, elaborated upon, moved and removed over the course of the exhibition. The installation will be, by turns, a gathering point for conversation, play, experimentation, work, and spontaneous collaboration amongst themselves and others.

The public are invited to contribute their own photographs to the exhibition via Instagram #curiocuria

Jones and Puotinen have also invited four guest artists to make their own contributions to the exhibition. From bringing work to the gallery, hosting events and staging performances, the nature of the space will change on a daily basis.

The project will open at 1pm on Friday 1 September with an experiential collaboration with guest artist Aliyah Hussain for a “Soft L(a)unch”, including nibbles and casual conversation with the artists. The table will be laid to welcome guests, who will help initiate the overall project with their presence and participation.

On Saturday 2 September (2-4pm) Jones and Puotinen will host BUFFET. The artists describe BUFFET as a collaborative skill share, soapbox, platform, and a space to test out… or a visual ‘pot-luck dinner’. From a piece of writing, a piece of work, a zine, a workshop; anyone can bring something to the experience.

CURIO CURIA will also feature the work of guest artist John Powell-Jones, who will have created a new performance and video within the installation to be premiered in the space on Wednesday 6 September and be on view for the remainder of the exhibition.

Guest artists Patti Crozier and Adam Griffiths will be responding and contributing to the project in an on-going way over the course of the exhibition.

The project will lead to an exhibition of photography, sculpture, ceramics, furniture design, and moving image work, with the celebratory event ‘This is Not a Preview’ on Thursday 7 September (6-8pm) and remain on view at Castlefield Gallery to Sunday 10 September.

More on the artists:

Marie Jones aka Kochi Kochi is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Manchester, UK. She has an MFA in Graphic Design & Art Direction from Manchester Metropolitan University (2015) Her work explores various forms, from combining computer generated visuals with more traditional and tactile mediums such as needlework and knitting, to challenging our conventional way of archiving loved ones possessions who have passed away. Jones received an artist-in- residence commission from Manchester International Festival (MIF) to develop a piece of work as part of of the opening event to Manchester International Festival (2017), “What is The City but the People?” exploring typography through textiles from her studio space at Islington Mill. kochi-kochi.co.uk o-b-j-e-c-t.com

Stina Puotinen is an artist, educator and occasional curator from New York City, currently living and working in Manchester, UK, where she is studying for an MFA in Collaborative Practice at Manchester School of Art 2015 – 2017. Her work explores communication, the (mis)interpretation of objects, spontaneous acts of collaboration and the creation of social space through sculpture, installation and performance. stinapuotinen.com

Guest Artists:

Adam Griffiths (Ra Bear) is a designer and art director based in Manchester, UK. He is a lecturer in Graphic Design and a member of the Design Research Group at Manchester School of Art. Through a range of media Griffiths practice moves between physical and digital worlds. He is interested in how images are harvested and disseminated through online platforms and how they might be re-presented in the ‘meatspace’ or real world enhancing the eerie familiarity between these two states.  ra-bear.com

Patti Crozier is a commercial interior designer, educator, closet artist and wannabe sculptor, based in Sheffield, UK. Her commercial work exploits the use of shape, light and material to create playful spaces and holistic experiences. CURIO CURIA will be her debut as an artist. Her work focuses on human engagement with the built environment and how it is shaped by habitual, social and cultural influences. thestudiopatti.com

Aliyah Hussain is an artist and maker, based at Islington Mill, Salford, UK. Her practice encompasses performance, sound, ceramics, sculpture and collage. She experiments with the performative and technical aspects of different media to create works that reference futurist narratives, utopian visions and ritualistic practices embedded in the everyday. aliyahhussain.co.uk

John Powell-Jones is an artist based at Islington Mill, Salford, UK whose work deals with power structures, perception and personal reality. He has an ongoing concern with the degrees of separation we put in place in regards to certain aspects of morality, specifically in relation to the meat industry and the suffering of others. With a background in illustration and printmaking he has always been interested in pushing an idea across various processes. Recent work involves constructing abstract narratives, ceramics, painting, sound and film, drawing reference from b-movie horror, comics, vintage Disney, English folklore and the grotesque.  johnpowell-jones.co.uk

Launch Pads are short exhibitions or performances that punctuate Castlefield Gallery’s main curated programme providing artists, writers and independent curators with the opportunity to use the gallery as a test bed for the production, display and consumption of contemporary art. Launch Pads feature emerging talent selected from CG Associate members’ proposals. For more information about CG Associates visit castlefieldgallery.co.uk/associates