•TangentProjects - The Launch: Our inaugural show, Art of Occupation
Press Release:
‘In
1999 several settlers complained to the military of bad reception on
their cellphones as they drove round a bend on the highway, Road 60,
leading from Jerusalem to the settlements in the northern West bank. In
response, the cellphone provider, Orange, agreed to erect an antenna in
the area. The settlers pointed to an elevated hilltop overlooking the
bend as a potential site for the mast. The same hilltop had been the
site of previous – unsuccessful – settlement attempts: three years
earlier settlers claimed that the summit was an archaeological mound
under which the biblical town of Migron was buried. Sample excavations
unearthed nothing older than a small Byzantine village, but the hilltop
was named ‘Migron’ regardless. Two young settlers occupied the hill,
living in converted shipping containers, but, with no prospects of
being able to develop the site, left after a short time.
The
hilltop, its slopes cultivated with figs and olives, was owned by
Palestinian farmers from the villages of Ein Yabrud and Burka who were
shepherds there. According to the emergency powers invested in the
Israeli military, however, the construction of a cellphone antenna
could be considered a military issue, and could therefore be undertaken
on private lands without obtaining the owners’ consent. Following a
request by Orange, the Israel Electric Corporation connected the
hilltop to the water system, purportedly to enable the construction
work.
Because
of delays in the masts construction, in May 2001 settlers erected a
fake antenna and received military permission to hire a 24-hour on-site
private security guard to watch over it. The guard moved into a trailer
at the foot of the mast, and fenced off the surrounding hilltop; soon
afterwards, his wife and children moved in and connected their home to
water and electricity supplies already there. On 3rd March 2002, five
additional families joined them, and the outpost of Migron formally
came into being. The outpost grew steadily. Since families were already
living onsite, the Israeli Ministry for Construction and Housing built
a Nursery, while some donations from abroad paid for the construction
of a synagogue. Migron is currently the biggest of the 103 outposts
scattered throughout the West Bank. By mid 2006 it comprised of around
150 people perched on the hilltop around a cellular antenna.’
The
installation of the fake mobile phone antenna in this tale marks the
beginning of what eventually becomes total foreign occupation of a
small territory. ‘Art of Occupation’ focuses on this abstract snapshot
of cultural growth by challenging each of the artists exhibiting to do
the same: to occupy their space.
Carefully
chosen because their different working practices already address issues
of space and/or cultural agenda, each artist brings their own personal
incite into what will be a playful investigation into the serious
concepts of occupation laid out in the tale above.
Sharon
Rothbard mentioned, ‘the most explosive ingredients of our time, all
modern utopias and all ancient beliefs (are contained) simultaneously
and instantaneously, bubbling side by side with no precautions’.
The
work exhibited will come from lengthy negotiations between each artist,
looking at how their work integrates, as well as how they mark their
own and each others territorial space within the gallery. These
conversations become part of a process that engenders and becomes part
of the work itself. ‘Art of Occupation’ aims to investigate and reflect
relevant issues of origin, occupancy, space and cultural growth facing
an artist working in London today.
"..occupied
territories should be seen as kind of ‘political plastic’, or as a map
of the relations between all the forces that shaped it.”
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• The Sandwich Box Project
Our work with the sandwich box project has been interrupted unexpectedly due to unforeseen circumstances. In the meantime, it's residing with Dan Jarman of Grey Area Gallery in Brighton. Dan will be curating a show with the Sandwich Box over the next few months.
The Sandwich Box project is an outgrowth from Danish artist Lars Vilhilmsen's earlier Travellers Secret Box project (see below) and involves a number of artists internationally on a collaborative level. The resulting collaborative artworks and ongoing project documentation will be published on the sandwich box site at each stage of the project.
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• tangent
Begun as an 8 page A5 photocopied publication in 2005,tangent is an independently produced artist fanzine and
has published 11 issues to date. Over the past few years tangent has expanded to an average of 24 pages, and is hand printed, with a bit of colour, in editions of no more than 100.
The zine is currently available in London, Nottingham, Melbourne, Montreal and Kathmandu.
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• Travellers Secret Box Project
Originated
and conceived by Danish artist Lars Vilhelmsen, the Travellers Secret
Box project was first set in motion in May of 2004, borne out of Lars’
desire to bring together, or rather, dissolve the boundaries between,
art and the existent. Though conceptually based, the project was a
collaborative venture, with the giving and receiving of a box (a found object
resembling a metal carry case) as the mediator with which artists
interrogated notions of context, identity, travel and boundary.
As the project evolved, Lars chose four project coordinators, variously located in Norway, Germany, the USA and England, to act as co-curators, each seeking out and inviting artists from within both their geographical and professional territories to participate. The project grew to include over 50 artists from various parts of Europe and North America.
Each artist has
uniquely questioned and responded to the invisible divisions which
persist between art and the existent, cultural identity and location,
cultural practices and custom, and notions of travel. The
resulting work as a whole is represented on the main TSB website and the work of the 13 UK-based artists can be seen in a singular context on the TSB UK website.