Dreaming: Art beyond the Gallery

Dreaming: Art beyond the Gallery
UHArts invites you to come, re-think and re-contextualise art outside the gallery. Open to all those interested in art in the public sphere, including art-lovers, students, artists, arts managers and curators.

This talk is part of New Geographies, a project redrawing the map of East England through stories and reflections of overlooked or forgotten places, artists are responding to the map over the next two years following an open call for ideas.

Artist have responded with a wide range of proposals, which could include performance, sound, temporary installation, co-production, community events and performance. Inspired by the range of art practices, we invite you to join us for an afternoon of conversations on what art can be outside the gallery.

The afternoon will include:
A workshop using Social Dreaming to explore art beyond the gallery and New Geographies, led by Dr Hayley Berman
A short tour of our current exhibition with tea, coffee and cake
A talk from Chelsea Pettitt, Head of Partnerships, Wysing Arts Centre
Workshop: Social dreaming
Within the workshop participants will engage with a process called Social Dreaming, where we will share night-time dreams and free associations responding to the context of New Geographies. Participants will then have space to make images, journal and reflect before returning to the larger group to create links and threads from the conversation. The session will be led by Hayley Berman, a practicing artist, art psychotherapist and Programme Leader of the MA Art Therapy at University of Hertfordshire.

Talk: What Can Public Art Be?
For the second half of the afternoon, we are delighted to welcome Chelsea Pettitt, Wysing Arts Centre, to talk about what public art could be, share some exciting examples and propose some questions for consideration.

Chelsea Pettitt is Head of Partnerships at Wysing Arts Centre. She leads multiple partnership programmes including the East Contemporary Visual Arts Network (ECVAN) of 18 arts organisations and artists, and New Geographies with eight partners delivering ten new commissions across the East of England. Pettitt also delivers the Syllabus programme, a year-long alternative learning programme for ten artists in partnership with six institutions across England. She previously worked at the Hayward Gallery and Hayward Touring, where she curated and organised major exhibitions including Mark Leckey’s ‘The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things’, ‘A Universal Archive: William Kentridge as Printmaker’, and group exhibitions ‘Move: Choreographing You’ which toured to Korea and Germany, and ‘British Art Show 8’ in collaboration with nine venues across four UK cities.

New Geographies
New Geographies is an Arts Council England funded project creating a new map of the East of England based on personal thoughts, reflections and stories of unexplored or over-looked places, rather than on historic centres. The first phase of the project invited members of the public to nominate locations for the map in the Summer of 2017. Artists have responded to some of these nominated places ahead of 10 commissions which will happen over the next two years.

For more information visit http://www.uharts.co.uk/whats-on/2018-spring-and-summer/dreaming-art-beyond-the-gallery