18 January - 14 February 2021

Net//Work is a four-week residency developed in partnership with British Council offering artists a period of reflection, research, practice, skills exchange and professional networking opportunities focused on digital artistic practices and technologies.

Wysing worked with artists Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Uma Breakdown, Nikissi Serumaga and Leyya Tawil with support from David Blandy.

Digital Arts Studios working with Golden Thread Gallery and Momentum Berlin hosted Rita Adib, Mohamed Abdel Gawad, Tim Shaw and Maya Chowdhry. Artists took part in a programme of activities including peer-to-peer exchange, mentoring, group critiques and presentations. The 2021residency took place online due to Covid-19.

The online residency aimed to find points of connection between four very exciting but very different practices. The online sessions in the residency provided critical support in the form of mentoring, group conversations, problem solving surgeries, guest talks and reading groups. These sessions were used to test ideas, tease out solutions and suggest new possible directions for these artists' projects. Following the residency, artists had the opportunity to participate in an online exhibition.

Drawing on his knowledge of digital technology within creative practices, Blandy, whose practice slips between performance and video worked with Syrian-born Leyya Tawil and Ugandan-based Nikissi Serumaga. Currently living in New York, Tawil is a performance and installation artist working with voice, movement and interactive audio electronics, whilst Serumaga is interested in stretching the limits of the screen, looking at the conjunction between physical objects, 3D space and ephemeral moments.  

Joining was UK-based artists Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley and Uma Breakdown. Working with video game, animation, sound and performance, Brathwaite-Shirley uses digital technologies to archive Black and Trans experiences, whilst Breakdown uses parallels drawn from experimental feminist writing practices, the study of horror cinema and game design to reconfigure art as an encounter with unstable and desirable processes. 

British Council in partnership with Wysing Arts Centre and Digital Arts Studios