Saturday, April 6, 2019

Itinerant Objects event at Tate Exchange, Tate Modern

After many months of preparation in collaboration with Winchester School of Art, we finally make it to Tate Exchange, Tate Modern! 

TAG has been working on a series of wearable cardboard costumes that combine, screenprint typography, Dadaist humour and references to homeless makeshift shelters. 

This project was helped and supported by the Hampshire Primary Schools Teaching Conference organised by the brilliant Jayne Stillman (Art and Design County Advisor) - teachers contributed handmade costumes that they donned and paraded around Southampton City Art Gallery. 




With the help of WSA PhD students and Ladies of the Press*, the group donned their outfits and moved through Tate Modern as part intervention and part "flight of fancy" with the aim to make the invisible visible

The experience was uplifting and poignant, with many of TAG saying that for once they felt that they were noticed instead of always feeling like they don't matter and they don't exist. 




The movement through Tate Modern also acted as a signpost for the 10 min Tate Modern presentation which was delivered by Alastair Eales (Trinity Winchester art educator) and Pippa Newman (TAG member and artist). 

The talk focused on seeing a fresh perspective: bring together Pippa's journey (from vulnerably-housed to employment) with the seminal artwork "Fountain" by Marcel Duchamp. The talk concluded that beauty is not just something experienced through the eyes, but also includes the heart. When a new truth is revealed, the once mundane object takes on a new immediacy - so too is true of people experiencing homelessness or mental health issues or social isolation, they feel invisible and unappreciated, but when their story is revealed their humanity shines through and they become visible - which is a beautiful thing. 


Marcel Duchamp "Fountain" 1964 replica