The Vauxhall Collective 2010
Vauxhall Motors is proud to announce new members of the Vauxhall Collective for 2010, one of the most ambitious commercially-funded creative support schemes in the UK. Theatre practitioner Hannah Eidinow, designer Gareth Neil, photographer Matt Stuart and artist Maurizio Anzeri have been invited to create new artworks around the theme of The Great British Weekend. Chosen for their imaginative interpretation of the theme, their commissions will explore Britain’s idiosyncratic idea of the weekend, and highlight Vauxhall’s commitment to supporting style and design in the UK.
The successful proposals were selected by a panel of industry experts, including previous Vauxhall Collective members Duncan Speakman and Gideon Reeling. The four up-and-coming talents will be fully supported during the realisation of their project, enabling them to move their work in new directions with complete artistic freedom.
The four commissions will be developed over the summer, in what promises to be an exciting range of installations, art projects and performances from this highly promising group of artists.
Theatre practitioner Hannah Eidinow will stage an engaging street-theatre performance over one weekend at the Edinburgh International Fringe festival, the world’s largest arts festival. Followers and the public will witness the journey of the fictional character MP Philip Wilson, taking his family to the seaside. The family desperately wants to get out of town for the great British weekend, but bicker constantly about the best way to do it. They will get lost, get stuck in traffic, and cause traffic jams as one member of the family flees the car in a rage at a traffic light. Each moment creates a brief scene of live street-theatre, reflecting on the traditional habits of weekending. As the Wilson family stops in different locations, it will also travel in time, impersonating the traditional nuclear family in different decades from the 30s to today, in a theatrical interpretation that dwells on the changing relationship of different family members through the years.
Furniture maker extraordinaire Gareth Neal is inviting the public to enjoy an Urban Picnic. He will create a weekend picnic scene complete with fallen trees for perching on, a picnic table and improvised objects for play, all to be discovered and enjoyed by urban residents in an unexpected landscape. Installed in unused and forgotten areas of London over the summer, the Urban Picnic will include a collection of exceptionally crafted but economically made objects, re-interpreting much loved accessories of any British weekend picnic, from bat and ball to hula-hoops. These designed objects will feature reinterpretations of traditional inlayed veneer patterns using ethically managed plantation and grown world timbers, inspiring the audience to seize the moment, take advantage of impromptu opportunities to play and relax in a place that they would not expect to do so.
Street photographer Matt Stuart will research the essence of the Great British Weekend as seen through the eyes of the Enthusiastic British people, as he defines them. Embarking in a month-long trip exploring the most extravagant and commitment-demanding weekend activities, Stuart will create a unique body of work, telling the unheralded stories of week end activities such as early morning fishing competitions, late night metal detector’s clubs, orienteering and canal renovation reunions, but also, mums supporting football clubs and dads attending classical ballet competitions.
The Fine Art Style Council was won over by Italian artist Maurizio Anzeri’s interpretation of the brief. Maurizio will celebrate the Great British Weekend with an installation entitled “The Garden Party”, a festive homage to the idea of British diversity and conviviality, using both sculptural and photographic works to recreate an indoor garden party and its characters. Stitching and sewing together synthetic hair until it becomes sculptural material, Maurizio’s oeuvre involves the creation of a series of different sized hair-sculptures, each representing a different personality and each metaphorically talking about bodily boundaries and embodiments of space. The result will be a re-interpretation of a quintessentially British weekend activity.
Each of the four creatives will have the use of a Vauxhall car to travel around the country to undertake their research, and each project will be supported by Vauxhall Motors as part of their ongoing commitment to up-and-coming talents.
Past members of the Vauxhall Collective include artists Matthew Darbyshire and Katie Paterson, designers Simon Hassan and Anglo-Dutch alliance Studio Glithero, photographers Gayle Chong-Kwan and Seba Kurtis, theatre practitioners Gideon Reeling and Duncan Speakman, film maker Ben Rivers and fashion designer Jonathan Kelsey. With such a strong history of successful commissions, this 2010 edition of the scheme promises to be as engaging and cutting-edge.
To celebrate the third year of the Vauxhall Collective programme, Vauxhall Motors is also organising a retrospective exhibition in the autumn at the Idea Generation gallery that will showcase the last 3 years’ achievements in its support of style and design in the UK.
