18 October — 28 November 2010

Partnering presented work developed through improbable and productive artists’ partnerships with Phyllida Barlow, Caroline Wright, Helen Rousseau & George Szirtes; EASTgoesEast; Luca Frei; Abbas Hashemi & Simon Woolham; Catherine Hemelryk & Hayley Lock; M4SK 22; Emma Smith; and Helen Stratford & Diana Wesser.

Phyllida Barlow, Caroline Wright, Helen Rousseau & George Szirtes engaged with each other’s practices through an eighteen month research project entitled I. In the project they investigated the relationship between drawing and writing. The ‘studio’ installation in Wysing’s gallery included an audio conversation recorded between the four of them, a script by Caroline Wright and Helen Rousseau and a backdrop photograph of Caroline’s real studio at Wysing and copies of materials produced so far. During the exhibition the studio installation hosted one of their meetings, open for visitors to encounter.

EASTgoesEast is a collaborative project developed from EASTinternational and Norwich University College of the Arts in partnership with Bunkier Sztuki, Kraków, Trafó Gallery, Budapest, Studio of Young Artists Association, Budapest, and OUTPOST, Norwich and is organised by Kaavous Clayton. He invited the artist Karolina Kowalska to show the work. The curator and three of the artists involved in EASTgoesEast, Karolina Kowalska, Jonathan O'Dwyer, and Krisztian Kristof, all contributed material to presenting different areas of interest within the common resource and further expanding this international partnership.

Luca Frei showed the work Untitled (…the Sun is the tongue, the Shadow is the language). The work focuses on the role of time within the concept of generosity. In the work, Frei developed a series of ceramic sculptures with support from former Wysing studio artist and ceramicist Bob Race. These playful pieces resembled clock faces but on a deeper level represent the generous exchange of time and experience, deeply crafted into the making of the work within Frei’s recent residency at Wysing. The works are installed on five panels leaning discreetly on the wall, creating a rhythm, a spatial gap and a shadow.

Abbas Hashemi & Simon Woolham showed their first collaborative project Möbius Band. The two artists, who both have studios at Wysing, developed a series of works directly responding to their different approach to drawing. The drawings were transformed to unusual three-dimensional objects inspired by the mathematical shape möbius - a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. Ten new sculptures were displayed on a platform alongside a new animation performing the principle of a möbius shape with the artists.

Catherine Hemelryk & Hayley Lock worked on the idea of embedding new histories across five literary and art historically significant venues in the UK. In their artist-curator partnership they lay clues to each house, inviting visitors to enter and explore starting points of this new project entitled Telling. The portraits, landscapes, minerals, twigs and mementoes were artefacts from adventures and as yet untold stories displayed in the vitrine and on the wall. The objects were united in the family album, opened in 2011.

M4SK 22 is a collaboration between artists Simon Woolham and David Moss making music and film. Mixing acoustic and electric instruments roots, soils and dusts, samples and software, found internet archives, paint and drawing in a desire fired sonic crucible with undercurrents of a hidden occult. M4SK 22 productions were exhibited in a black, intimate, outdoor shed between Wysing’s main studio building and stable block. M4SK 22 also ran a special workshop in which participants were invited to create masks from collected materials and act out their mask characters in a film workshop over the launch weekend.

Helen Stratford & Diana Wesser work together as interdisciplinary duo urban (col)laboratory based in UK and Germany. In their process-led research practice they investigate the rhythms and routines by which people negotiate, define and produce everyday spaces. They developed a specially choreographed work in which they invited visitors to explore the architecture of Wysing through a series of practices. In addition, they installed three photographic works that documented these types of practices in different places accompanied by a quote from an official description or from the architect’s responsible for each place. Finally, in reception, a video work explored a public place in the City of Manchester as a stage for everyday performances.

Emma Smith has a social practice that is both research and production based and responds to site-specific issues. Using an inter-disciplinary approach, including organised events, performance, participation, sound and drawing, she explores the art of everyday life. A special printed poster announced the event to take place on 27 November at Wysing. The poster was inspired by a poster designed in 1880 at that time announcing a communal event which took place in Wysing’s nearest village Bourn. This special event at Wysing included readings, recitations, story telling, songs, tea and presents.