Barnaby is thrilled to announce that Arts Council England has awarded the festival a grant of £40,000 for a series of site-specific art commissions in Macclesfield’s historic town centre.
The grant, spread over two years, enables nationally acclaimed artists such as Rachel Goodyear, Liz West, the artist collective Brass Art, and Macclesfield-based Hilary Jack to showcase their work this year.
New site-specific commissions for Barnaby 2013, include:
HILARY JACK who will create an installation in the Savage Tower using silk thread salvaged from Spurcroft Mill in Macclesfield, which recently closed. Jack will weave a series of large-scale ‘webs’ inside the tower, using a traditional ‘pin and thread’ technique to highlight the town’s jacquard silk heritage. The webs will also symbolise the entrapment of Macclesfield anchoress Dame Joan, who lived in the tower in the early 16th century. The colours of the silk – gold, red, purple, royal blue and white – are associated with religious ceremony and will catch the light, throwing shadows and creating a sense of the otherworldly.
LIZ WEST will use single-coloured objects to create her largest site-specific installation to date, covering the floor space of an empty shop unit in the Grosvenor Shopping Centre with the flotsam and jetsam of life. West is influenced by the process of collecting, and her work specifically relates to the desire to gather and assemble objects, using colour and light to transform everyday things into new sculptural forms.
BRASS ART will exhibit ‘The Messengers No 2’, three gigantic inflatable heads (each measuring 3 meters in length), in Christ Church. The heads, inspired by classical images of Hypnos, the god of sleep, are created using biomedical facial scans of the three artists who make up Brass Art. One of the heads was commissioned for the Tatton Park Biennial in 2012.
Internationally acclaimed artist RACHEL GOODYEAR will show a collection of beautiful drawings and a rarely seen film in Charles Roe House on Chestergate. ‘Thought Spill’ is a series of intricate sketches that have been framed and clustered together to form a narrative. The film, ‘Woodman 2011’ was originally created for her solo show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Viewed in a darkened room, the strange solitary figure on the screen is given a life by subtle changes to the illustration and a haunting sound track.
The Grants for the arts award will also fund new commissions for Barnaby Festival 2014, including proposed work by The Owl Project, ceramicist Tom Barnett and contemporary sculptor Laura Ellen Bacon, as well as opportunities for the public to engage with artists at both festivals.
Anna Riordan, Barnaby Visual Arts Director, says: “This award represents a significant development for Macclesfield Barnaby Festival in terms of impact, ambition and public engagement. It will enable us to secure more nationally recognised artists and to form partnerships with other commissioning bodies for 2014. By engaging with the community, building partnerships and drawing on a regional audience we hope it will contribute to a cultural renaissance in Macclesfield.”
Taken from www.barnabyfestival.org.uk
Barnaby Festival runs from 14 - 30th June 2014
