006 David Toop, Irene Revell and Conal McStravick

As David Toop's study week approaches, we thought we would revisit a conversation from the 2015 Multiverse programme between David, Irene Revell of Electra and artist Conal McStravick. In this event, entitled 'If we’re going to use this wretched term, then let’s be clear about who was innovating in it', Electra made public two intersecting strands of enquiry that they had been exploring during their summer residency at Wysing; the feminist performance score, and the early sound works and video of Stuart Marshall (1949–1993). Exhibitions of Stuart Marshall's work are rare, but his Diary of a Plague Year, 1984, was one of many highlights in Dan Kidner's The Inoperative Community exhibition at Raven Row last year.

Each year Wysing's programme explores a certain theme which emerges from the many dialogues and concerns raised by those who work with us or attend our events and exhibitions. This was one such conversation that turned out to be very important in the development of our current programme, Wysing Poly. 

In Wysing Director Donna Lynas' words: "Listening to David Toop it suddenly struck me what an experimental time it was for the arts in the 1970s and 1980s, when networks of artists slipped in and out of roles to generate an energy that seems to have re-emerged today in the plethora of impressive artist-run spaces and initiatives. This energy came out of centres of learning, predominantly Polytechnics, in a way that seems to have been lost today. Wysing Poly is our contribution to this discourse and alongside residencies we will be hosting events and discussions that both look back to the 1970s and 1980s, a period which did of course also have it's problems and exclusions, and look to what is happening now in the arts and education."

006A David Toop, Irene Revell and Conal McStravick

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