REVISIONARY SUBURBIA
Artists
Sculpting the Suburban Landscape, MoDA’s 6th Annual Outdoor Show (19th June -30th September 2007), challenges the notion of the English traditional domestic garden in modern day Britain. The area around the museum has been divided into ten plots (five front gardens and five back gardens) each of which has been ‘landscaped’ by artists with a keen eye on the changing nature of the garden.
Plot 1 – Julia Dennis The Untold, 2007, caravan, memorabilia
Julia Dennis explores the garden as a place of ‘refuge’, a special place, a place of beauty and shelter, where you can do as you please. She uses the caravan as a sculptural ‘retreat’, a symbol of transience and travel: here the landscapes of memory have a place to remember and re-invent. [Website / Email]
Plot 2 – Elaine Arkell Pests and Personalities, 2007, mixed media (recycled domestic/horticultural materials and objects)
The relationship between man and bird is as long as agriculture itself, but often very uneasy: it has given rise to the equally global scarecrow. Elaine Arkell’s site-specific sculptural investigations reflect current cultural obsessions as she interrogates notions of value and use. [Email]
Plot 3 – Sen McGlinn + Sonja van Kerkhoff Cross Pollination, 2007, metal, wood, papier mache, plastic
Cross Pollination is a playful interpretation of the metaphor of cultural cross- pollination in a multi-cultural world. The flowers bloom bubbles of diverse objects, and the visitors are invited to become the bees. [Website]
Plot 4 – Catherine Gamble The ‘Petit Versailles’ of a Drinker, 2007, broken bottles, plants
The suburban garden has long been used as an area to express one’s status, for recreation, and for practical purposes. The ‘Petit Versailles’ of a Drinker has pretensions to a classical formal garden such as Versailles. [Email]
In-between Plot 4 and Plot 5 – Jolanta Jagiello How Does Your Garden Grow?, 2007, found twisted metal, rusty and broken garden tools
How does your Garden Grow? is inspired by Derek Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage where he created shingle garden from debris he found on the beach at Dungeness. Like Derek Jarman, Jolanta Jagiello has turned rusty old discarded gardening tools into artistic treasures. [Email]
Plot 5 – Amrit Row The New Suburban Garden, 2007, hedging, concrete paving, statuary, hardcore
‘New Suburban Garden’ suggests that multiculturalism, as it exists in the suburbs, is mediated by the need to fit in; and that a degree of wealth that is part of the suburban experience is a great social leveller where all gods are banished to hardcore rubble. [Website / Email]
Plot 6 – Darryl Moore All That Glitters, 2007, garden arbours, roses, jewellery
Two garden arbours face each other, as if in an ongoing conversation, representing contrasting cultural values. One arbour is presented in the traditional English manner, entwined with climbing roses, whilst the other is adorned with gold ‘Bling’ style jewellery, representing a contemporary urban sensibility, which has spread from city centres to the heartlands of suburbia. [Email]
Plot 7 – Grace Adam Suburban Gardens, 2007, garden shed, painted canvases
Through Suburban Gardens, the artist Grace Adam extends her explorations into what we choose to cultivate. Through this installation piece she explores the idea of the transformation in status of ordinary things through the act of looking at them more closely, putting them together in a way that makes us look afresh. [Email]
Plot 8 – Deborah Gardner The International Line, 2007, washing lines, clothes, wax
Deborah Gardner is fascinated by the visual beauty of lines of washing pinned out to dry. The clothes in The International Line are cast in cement, permanently held hanging or flying in the wind. The dynamic, yet permanent configurations of clothes blowing in the wind signify the ever-transforming lifestyles, communities and suburbs of cities and towns. [Email]
Plot 9 – Mari Terauchi Play with me, watch with me, 2007, tent 180cm width 200cm height
Mari Terauchi’s work invites visitors to experience the differences evident in the gardens of Japan and England. Visitors can play and create their English garden within Mari Terauchi’s book. In comparison, Japanese gardens are created for Zen meditation: visitors are invited to sit in front of the garden and simply look. [Email]
Plot 10 – Sumi Perera Mad Dogs And Englishmen, 2007, underwear, sun, grass & solar lights The practice of tanning and the resulting suburban lace curtain twitchers is addressed in this artwork. Lace underwear will be arranged to make giant doilies placed on the grass. Over the period of the fourteen week exhibition, these patterns will be rotated fortnightly to observe and record the effects of sunlight. [Website / Email]
Plot 00 – Indoors on staircase and outside on the exterior of the MoDA building – Paul Greco House and Gardens, 2007, photographs and vinyl wall pieces
The first part of Paul’s work in this exhibition, on the museum staircase, is a personal response to the indoor exhibition. The second, consisting of vinyl pieces on the exterior of the museum, relate to the themes and ideas of the outdoor sculpture exhibition. Paul’s aim was to link the two exhibitions and encourage a dialogue between artist, visitor and museum. [Email]
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