Friday 26 September 2014

SEeAFAR at Deptford X


SEeAFAR opens at Deptford X TONIGHT!
The exhibition is looking stunning in the fabulous, spacious NUM3ER Space,  Creekside, Deptford, London SE8 4SA
PRIVATE VIEW TONIGHT: Friday 26th September 6-8.30pm 

OPEN FROM 12-6pm on: 27th, 28th September and 1-5th October

This exhibition brings together new work from Foa + Hosea, Carali McCall, Anne Robinson, Sarah Sparkes and Thurle Wright. Using a range of media - drawing, animation, performance to video, light installation, painting and collage - the works engage with living with the constant presence of an absence through the metaphor of waiting for someone to return from sea.

[Invite image 'Jane Conquest Rings the Bell' (detail) Sarah Sparkes, (great grandfather Sparkes' magic lantern slides and mixed media, 2014]


Thursday 18 September 2014

AiRM2014

I'm delighted to be one of the selected artists for AiRM2014 



You can find my new work, 'Blue Seven' at St.  Peter and St. Paul Newchurch. They have the most fabulous coffee morning on Saturdays with a buffet of cake heaven!

AiRM theme this year  is Blue year in honour of the legacy of Derek Jarman, I have made seven blue cloaks/ robes and defined a robing area with blue hangings. Visitors can wear the cloaks as they explore the church.


Wear a blue cloak and cross a blue threshold...

Tweet your #Blue7 photos to @thesarahsparkes and @artromneymarsh

St Peter St Paul Newchurch

Title:  'Blue Seven'

Medium: Installation with blue fabrics, ribbon and silk thread

Artists’s Statement
Ancient religious texts describe the use of blue fabric hangings to delineated a place for a divine presence. For AIRMC2014, Sarah Sparkes has created a blue robing area, containing seven blue cloaks, representing the seven participating churches. You are invited to wear one of the cloaks, shrouding yourself in blue, during your visit.

          Sarah Sparkes is an artist and curator. She runs the visual arts project 'GHost'  She spent three years as Artist in Residence and Research Fellow at the 'Harry Price Library of Magical Literature' and this has informed much of her recent work.   She recently completed commissions for Camberwell Arts and the 'Over Time' project at Enderby Wharf  in Greenwich. Recent exhibitions include Theatrical Dynamics' at Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles; 'Haunted Landscapes' at Falmouth University, Cornwall and 'SEeAFAR' at Folkestone Triennial Fringe, Folkestone and Deptford X, London.





Thursday 11 September 2014

Over Time

I am part of the wonderful Over Time project, curated by Anne Robinson.
The project includes a series of performances, an exhibition, talks and a publication.  

Over Time - Eleven artists respond to Enderby's Wharf, a place where time is revealed in the rising and falling of the tide.  Soon, this liminal space will be lost forever beneath a concrete jetty.  

Go see Enderby's Wharf and the work we have made in response to it, before it's too late.


artists: Rachel Gomme, Ian Thompson, Claudia Firth, Charlie Fox, Sarah Sparkes, The INternational Western Victoria Gray, Katharine Fry and Gavin Maughfling, Jo David and Birgitta Hosea 

Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th September: Thames foreshore around Enderby’s Wharf 11am to 4pm both days  and 7.45-10pm on Saturday
13th/14th WEEKEND DETAILS: CLICK HERE
19th September to 16th October: Old Royal Naval College: Stephen Lawrence Gallery 
Archive Space
Sunday 26th October: National Maritime Museum and Queen’s House, Greenwich

More information: http://overtimeart.org/

Over Time  is a visual arts project about time passing, curated by Anne Robinson. There are ten artists taking part, working across a range of media including painting, film, performance and animation.   Each one will make a response to spending precisely the same fixed amount of ‘clock time‘ in specific stretch of the Thames foreshore around Enderby’s Wharf, during the weeks and months leading into the exhibition/performance period. The work derived from time spent in this historically resonant and atmospheric riverside space will result in a weekend of activities: 13th and 14th September, 2014 and an exhibition at the University of Greenwich 18th September to 16th October There will also be a day of performance and film works at the National Maritime Museum on Sunday 26th October. All of the invited artists are already engaged in some way in working with aspects of temporality, such as perception, elasticity, affect, politics, recording and value.
The space on the foreshore is particularly important to the project because of the richness of the layers of time visible there – the current rapidly changing landscape, the natural markers, the tides and the bend of the river and the industrial heritage and history, including the site where the first underwater telegraph cables were laid. We are also working with local contacts to set up workshops responding directly to this environment in light of imminent changes. The project is being developed in collaboration with Ian Thompson, sound artist based at the University of Greenwich and The Facility Creative Practice as Research group at London Met University. The other confirmed artists are: Rachel Gomme, Ian Thompson, Claudia Firth, Charlie Fox, Sarah Sparkes, The INternational Western Victoria Gray, Katharine Fry and Gavin Maughfling, Jo David and Birgitta Hosea all of whom have outstanding  reputations in their various fields, including performance digital animation, dance and sound and  have been involved in arts projects of international standing. Please use the Contact link above if you have any queries about the project.

Sunday 7 September 2014

Psychic Synopsis at Nunhead Open 2014

Psychic Synopsis: Indexing the Unconscious Mind of Nunhead Library


I'm delighted to be one of the artists commissioned to make work for the legendary Nunhead Open this year.
I have been researching the collection of books and other items at Nunhead Library. 
As 'the Psychic Librarian',  I have created an archive from items which particularly resonated with my unconscious mind, as I let it drift in fluidium of the library catalogue. 
I have created 52 index cards, one for each of the archived items.  

Dear Reader,

You are invited to close your eyes, put out your hands (palm downwards) to feel the vibrations from the cards. One card will resonate more strongly with you than the rest...chose this card...then make a journey to find the book, or other item, that is revealed when you turn the card over.

The Psychic Librarian will be present on Saturday 13th September
and absent on Saturday 20th September

More details here
Psychic Synopsis at Senate House Library here