Molly Brocklehurst
'Utopia Through Nostalgia' at The Koppel Project Hive
Being accepted to exhibit at the Kopple Project Hive with my group exhibition has been the most exciting thing for me this year.
After sending off my proposal and a portfolio I had put together of 8 artists, I was invited for a meeting at the gallery to discuss my exhibition proposal. I heard back a few weeks later that my application had been successful and I had an exhibition slot from 9th January - 8th February 2019.
The 8 artists include myself, Luisa and Ann from the Wimbledon MFA, Nick Macneil from the last year's MA Painting course and 4 Goldsmiths Graduates/students in their last year: Norman Mine, Mariana Mauricio, Lydia Blakeley and Richard Porter. Lydia Blakeley was a friend on my BA course at Leeds College of Art whom I recently got back in touch with because I thought it would be interesting to conduct an exhibition with artists from different educational backgrounds; I was keen to meet some new people myself and I hoped we could all bring something new to the table and learn things from one another. She sent me some photos of artworks from artists doing the Goldsmiths MA so I could select artists I thought would work well with the exhibition, whom I then contacted. I chose artists whose work I thought could relate to the exhibition title 'Utopia Through Nostalgia'.
It was challenging organising 7 other artists, 3 of whom I had never met. My duties have been the following:
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For the application, I asked for the artists to send me 3 high quality images of separate works, their artist bios, artist statement and CV. I set a realistic deadline for everyone to do this by and only ended up chasing one artist.
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I put a lot of time towards coming up with a theme for the exhibition and writing the exhibition proposal.
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For the application, I put together a PDF of the proposal, artist bios, portfolio and a floorplan that Luisa helped me with on photoshop. It shows a realistic curation plan of where the artworks could be in both floors of the gallery, all scaled up to the floor plan dimensions.
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Once we were accepted to exhibit, I decided to make a whatsapp group for the artists to make communication between us all easier.
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I answered any questions that the artists may have over the contract by being in constant communication with the Kopple Project.
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I was in constant communication via email to the Koppel Project to provide them with all the promotion material that they need.
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I conducted multiple group meetings, where we could all meet each other and discuss matters over the exhibition.
Installation shots from the exhibition
As part of the preparation for the private view, we invited the journalists and critics that each of us knew, in the hope to have someone review the exhibition. I was delighted when the art critic Jude Cowan Monatgue came to the show and further wrote a really interesting review on the exhibition which appears now on Artlyst.
Exhibition Review on Art Lyst
Please see my Exhibition Proposal below:
UTOPIA THROUGH NOSTALGIA
Group Exhibition Proposal 2019
In this group exhibition, utopia becomes the imaginative reconstruction of a lost past. Entwined with memory and fantasy, it creates a past made from distorted narratives. Time advances, with its unforgiving power to decay, moving forward but never stopping. Whilst it has the ability to blur the past, it can leave us yearning for a life already lived.
This exhibition consists of a body of work by eight emerging artists, addressing ideas of time and the diminishing realities of existence. ‘Utopia through Nostalgia’ presents a collection of experiences, inspired by memories of all ages. The exhibition is achieved through the compilation of artwork in a variety of media all of which capture the traces of time. This ranges from the figurative reproductions of imagery in painting, to abstract compositions, and the different textures in the surfaces of sculptures and installations.
Each artist aims to depict their nostalgic remembrances of people, objects, locations, experiences and feelings that relate to the rose-coloured memories of their past. Nostalgia is always romanticised: the past exists through a continually revised narrative of remembering and therefore threatens the present reality. Pining for an impossibly pure experience, nostalgia wears a distinctly fanciful mask that turns toward a future-past, which has only a utopian projection.
The Koppel Project Hive is situated within the City of London where the accelerated surroundings restrict one’s time to reflect and slow down. Utopia Through Nostalgia encourages viewers to indulge in a ‘pause’ in time while making them conscious of its physicality by incorporating a delicate ticking sound. In conjunction with the artworks, this configuration of space invites viewers into a calm haven from our over-saturated day-to-day lives.
Please click this link for our published page on Kopple Project's website: