EXHIBITIONS IN 2006:

exhibition
Student Photography Exhibition
University of Bath Staff & Students
ICIA Arts Space 1, University of Bath
December 2006 - March 2007

This lively exhibition showcases selected works from the 2006 University of Bath Student Photography Competition. With more than 10,000 students on campus, the quality of the work was high and the approach was diverse.
There was an extra category this year featuring photographs taken by University staff.

exhibition
DanceSCAPES - Kevin Clifford
ICIA Arts Spaces 1 & 2, University of Bath
September - December 2006

DanceSCAPES was a unique photography exhibition specially commissioned by Dance South West and Arts Council England, South West. Photographer, Kevin Clifford, combines the beauty of the West Country with the imagination and talent of the region's most creative dance artists. The photographer explores the landscape through a dancer's eyes using shape, shadow and light to create dynamic images to challenge our perception of dance. The locations are places of significance for each dancer and reflect many things from childhood, family, holidays, to places that have inspired works.

Nineteen dancers suggested by the local dance agencies of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Dorset, Swindon, Gloucester and Bristol, under the guidance of Dance South West, took part in the project. Originally unveiled earlier this year at the British Dance Editions, the biennial showcase of UK dance, these photographs established Kevin's reputation as a photographer who brings the dancer's perspective to the fore of his work.

exhibition
INGRID POLLARD - Self Evident
University Parade, University of Bath
December 2006 - May 2007

Children photographed in black and white look straight at the camera (including one imposing full-size billboard). Meanwhile in full colour, adults' heads are turned to one side or they close their eyes, seemingly lost in contemplation. The children stand against blank backgrounds while the adults are situated in external rural or coastal settings. Ingrid makes the viewer examine and question what is going on within and between these images.

There is a playfulness about the arrangement of the richly coloured scenes of adult figures holding various props. The objects invite interpretation; they carry associations with both cultural histories and souvenirs of travel.

Ingrid is interested in the assumptions that are often made about culture, place and how they relate to individual experience. She gained attention in the late 80s with Pastoral Interlude, a series of photographs of black people in the English countryside. This was the start of an articulation of her experiences as a black British woman through the conventions of portraiture and landscape photography. Ingrid is now well known for exploring heritage, the romanticism of English landscape, and England's hidden histories associated with Africa and the Caribbean.

Born in Guyana, Ingrid lives and works in London. She studied Film and Video at the London College of Printing followed by an MA in Photographic Studies at the University of Derby. Ingrid has exhibited widely in Europe and America, including the National Portrait Gallery (London), Museum of Modern Art (Oxford), NGBK (Berlin), Caribbean Cultural Centre (New York) and Camerawork (San Francisco).

Self Evident is organized in conjunction with another exhibition of Ingrid Pollard's work Landscape Trauma.

exhibition
INGRID POLLARD - Landscape Trauma
ICIA Arts Space 2, University of Bath
June - September 2006

There is an abstract beauty and painterly quality to Ingrid Pollard's photo-based works. Her images are richly detailed, suggesting mysterious organic forms. Deliberately ambiguous, they reflect on the illusionary nature of photography. She describes them as 'focusing on the original elements of the earth, which form the fundamental substances used in photographic production'.

Ingrid gained attention in the late 80s with Pastoral Interlude, a series of photographs of black people in the English countryside. This was the start of an articulation of her experiences as a black British woman through the conventions of portraiture and landscape photography. Ingrid is now well known for exploring heritage, the romanticism of English landscape, and England's hidden histories associated with Africa and the Caribbean.

Landscape Trauma is organized in conjunction with another exhibition of Ingrid Pollard's work Self Evident.

exhibition
ANA BILANKOV
Inventing a Space
ICIA Arts Space 1, University of Bath
May - August 2006

Croatian artist Ana Bilankov’s beautiful, atmospheric video and photographic images raise questions about location, identity and how many places one can be present in at once. Rather than presume any simple answers, she offers a series of observations open to interpretation. Her imagery moves between Berlin, Bristol, Cornwall, London and the Adriatic, causing you to wonder about the specific location in each image. Ana explores this uncertainty: a sailing boat drifts across a monitor screen, two distant figures walk through a lush park. In her series Found Slides, these places seem unknown even to the artist herself. Ana draws on her own experiences of in-between-ness, of having to move between places geographically, culturally and psychologically, and of living in translation.
Ana lives and works in Berlin, and has exhibited and worked on projects in Croatia, Germany, Russia and the UK. Exhibition was held in conjunction with ICIA’s Symposium, PRESENT trauma / art / representation.

exhibition
BOBBY BAKER
Drawings
ICIA Arts Space 2, University of Bath
March – June 2006

Bobby Baker is one of Britain’s leading performance artists. Like her internationally acclaimed performances, Bobby’s drawings are often both humorous and moving.

This was the first time that images from Bobby’s diary sketchbooks have been exhibited. Bobby originally trained as a painter, and although she has continued to draw, she does not often exhibit her visual artwork. The exhibition featured photographs of selected pages from many sketchbooks, about her experiences of suffering from profound and enduring mental health problems. The drawings were made as a way of reflecting on mental distress and the ‘mental health system’. Although originally personal and private, they have become a useful way of communicating thoughts and emotions that are difficult to articulate in words to professionals, friends and family. Many viewers found they could identify or empathise with the subjects explored, especially the hilarity that often helps us to process extreme situations.

This exhibition was part of University of Bath’s Mental Health Week (20-24 March) and the national Mental Health Action Week (16-22 April). A collaboration between University of Bath Student Counselling Service, Students’ Union & ICIA
This exhibition marked the launch of the new gallery, ICIA Art Space 2 (3 West North, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath)

www.bobbybakersdailylife.com
Bobby Baker is an Artsadmin artist.

exhibition
STEPHEN GILL
Photographs
ICIA Arts Space 1 & the University Parade, University of Bath
March - May 2006

Invisible:
ICIA Art Space 1, University Parade (opposite Library)
Billboards:
The Parade (opposite Dolche Vita cafe)

Widely regarded as a major force in British photography, Stephen Gill captures the details of daily life that are often overlooked. This was a chance to view work from two of his series. In Billboards Stephen focuses on the back of hoardings, quietly exposing the artifice in advertising. Held in place with structures reminiscent of theatre sets, the billboards often conceal grey urban wastelands in sharp contrast to the dreams their posters promote. Billboards were displayed on external boards concealing building work on the University’s Parade. Invisible documents the activities of those workers who wear reflective orange or yellow jackets. Stephen’s work suggests that rather than making people stand out, they become invisible to the casual passer-by.
Stephen’s work has been exhibited all over the world and is held in many major collections. His photographs regularly appear in international magazines.

“Gill brings a very British, understated irony
into portrait and landscape photography"
Martin Parr, Photographer

See Stephen Gills' website for more information.

IN DISCUSSION
Stephen Gill & Jon Ronson
Guildhall, Bath
March 2006

Jon Ronson, Guardian journalist, Radio 4 presenter, best-selling author and acclaimed documentary filmmaker, was in discussion with Stephen about his work. Jon comments that Stephen’s photographs are ‘beautifully laden with tiny, understated details about the way we live today’. Stephen’s award-winning A Book of Field Studies was followed in 2005 by Invisible and Hackney Wick.
Talk held in association with Bath Literature Festival and New Cuts Project.

exhibition
LINES OF ENQUIRY 2
Work by graduates of
BA Fine Art Drawing,
School of Art and Design,
Swindon College
ICIA Arts Space 1, University of Bath
January - Feburary 2006

This was our second exhibition featuring work by a selection of talented new graduates from the BA in Fine Art Drawing, Swindon College. This highly respected course brings together students keen to develop an artistic practice through investigating drawing and its role in contemporary art. On the course, a diverse range of student work explores the place of drawing in activities like site-specific art, installation and new digital technologies, through to painting, sculpture and printmaking. The pieces selected for this show included video, mixed media, photography and sound.

The University of Bath validates all Art and Design degree courses at Swindon College.

“For these students, drawing has provided a vantage point, a place to contemplate and consider the shifting landscape of Fine Art practice.”
Paul Danks, Pathway Leader, BA Fine Art Drawing.

Exhibitions in 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000