Since the beginning of the year Project Ability has welcomed five students from The Glasgow School of Art to work alongside their artists at Trongate103. The five students have been sharing ideas, working collaboratively and exploring new art mediums with the regular Project Ability artists. Each student’s project will contribute to their final degree in ‘Sculpture and Environmental Art.
For the second week we would like to introduce you to the collaborative project between Dylan Esposito (GSA student), Simon McAuley and Richard Anderson (Project Ability Artists).
Dylan, Richard and Simon
Over the past year Simon, Richard, and myself (Dylan) have been working collaboratively, exploring pinhole photography and its infinite possibilities. Our explorations culminated in a group show in South Block Gallery in July 2019. However, we felt this wasn’t the end of the project and have since decided to create a new body of work for an accessible exhibition launching in summer 2020.
We recently gave a presentation within Project Ability’s gallery space, summing up what we’ve been working on & where we’re planning on going next. Below is an extract from Simon’s talk at the presentation articulating our journey so far:
“Last year’s project we showed pinhole images. It was this medium which we had in common, approaching the science, materials and aesthetic in different ways. Dylan’s lovely soft dreamy images, Richard’s gritty street scenes used a pinhole and standard lens juxtaposed and my own soft, large format landscapes. Some of my own work went on to Berlin for a group show alongside Richard and others.
Last year’s project was tightly collaborative, where we centred our interests around the same medium. This proved to be a launchpad for exploring our own individual research areas. We all diverged from the initial collaboration, yet we still come back to a core of collaborative concerns.
Although the conversations, now, are more varied we have retained the intensity of inquiry. From our own positions we contribute and share. We all respond as individual artists and collectively as co-curators.
At this point the project has a different shape than previously. There is an evolution of curatorial ideas – how do we bring together three practices? Our conversations continue. In these, we search for shared themes and contrasts, conceptually and aesthetically.
Over the last year, we have had discussions in and around a number of subjects evolving out of the science of pinhole photography – from the quantum to the universal, from finite particles to infinite dimensions.
Since then, our individual practices have evolved as we followed our own areas of interest. For Richard this was a route that took him into some serious programming and printmaking territory, whereas Dylan found that a more sculptural approach was fitting, producing pieces which referenced domestic forms yet used industrial forms in their fabrication. I have continued to explore pinhole photography.”
Richard further outlines some questions and ideas surrounding our current project:
“I was thinking about what the project is and how some of it is how to get your head around finite and infinite, what can you accept as an idea(l), how to make a finite process, how a finite process can create an infinite object – but it might need an infinite amount of time to do so – and so does that exist – in reality or just in theory?????”
As our explorations continue we hope to open up a discourse into such subjects, sharing our collective outcomes in our upcoming show.
