Tuesday 9 February 2010

Cultex: Global exchanges conference




Cultex, which opened in Oslo, has now moved to the Hub, Sleaford, and this conference was organised to coincide with the exhibition. The main theme of the day was how collaborations are organised and how the participants benefit from them. Yuka Kawai, Eva Schjolberg and Gabriella Goransson, who had all participated in the Cultex exhibition, explained how they had approached their collaboration and how they had interacted and learnt from their partners. Lesley Millar, the curator of the exhibition, spoke about how we are all formed by our heritage and how it is important to acknowledge our differences and form connections with other cultures. Tim Parry-Williams spoke about his time in Japan working with Junichi Arai and how much he had learnt from it. Jeremy Theophilus, Sally Lai and Yasmin Canvin talked about the problems of organising successful international collaborations.

Having seen the Cultex exhibition in Oslo, it was interesting to see it in a new venue. The first difference was the light, because at the Hub all the pieces were shown in white cube surroundings whereas in Oslo all the exhibition rooms had large windows opening out on to a snowy scene that reflected the light. Another difference was the space allowed for each work and Gabriella commented on this difference in scale in her talk. Also in Oslo several of the pieces had been exhibited in the grounds of the gallery, which gave them an extra dimension that was not possible at the Hub.

Eva Scholberg’s large folded piece that had been exhibited outside in Oslo attached to a tree was too difficult to transport so she had produced smaller pieces for the gallery at the Hub. These looked stunning bent to form a curved wall. Anniken Amundsen’s drawings and forms also benefitted from being shown together rather than in different rooms as they were in Oslo.

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