GHost Dance at Durdan and Ray, Los Angeles

My work GHost Dance,  2014, has been selected for the exhibition The Sense of Things at Durdan and Ray, Los Angeles.

 GHost Dance, 2014
medium: mixed media on wallpaper
dimensions: 20 cm diameter
The Sense of Things is curated by David Leapman of Durdan and Ray and David Hancock of the Paper Gallery
My work and the exhibition were featured in a preview from Carolina A Miranda in the Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-datebook-walton-ford-ellen-gallagher-20171101-htmlstory.html



The Sense of Things, Durdan and Ray, 1923 S Santa Fe Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90021, USA
November 4 - 25 2017. Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sunday by appointment
Curators: David Leapman and David Hancock
Artists: Tom Dunn, Jack Duplock, Roni Feldman, Jon Flack, David Hancock, Thomas Whittaker Kidd, Ilona Kiss, Paraic Leahy, Sharon Leahy-Clark, David Leapman, Richard Meaghan, John Mills, Sarah Sparkes

Statement: Sparkes work GHost Dance is part of a body of work investigating 'a formula for ghost-making'. Sparkes has mixed iconic spiritualist imagery from U.S.A. and Europe, creating a digital collage which has been printed onto a surface of 1970s wallpaper from the artists childhood home.

Bio: Artist Sarah Sparkes exhibits widely in the UK and internationally. Her new work,The GHost Formula, 2016 commissioned by for FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) recently toured to NTMoFA (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts) as part of the exhibition No Such Thing As Gravity. She was the 2015 winner of the MERU ART*SCIENCE award for her film Time You Need, which she recently presented at KOSMICA in Mexico City. She runs the creative research project GHost and she has been collecting Liverpool ghost stories, as part of an Arts Council funded project. She exhibits her paintings with New Art Projects, London. Sarah Sparkes is an Associate Lecturer at UAL and she teaches art and curating courses at numerous institutions.

EMPIRE II at 57th Biennale di Venezia

Peninsula, Sparkes & Thompson, 2016

Peninsula, a film by Sparkes & Thompson, 2016, is part of EMPIRE II , a collatoral event and part of the British Art Map, at the 57th Biennale di Venezia.  Artists short films, exploring anxiety, play on a permanent loop for the entire duration of the Biennale.

Peninsula
Referencing supernatural film tropes and drawing on the aesthetics of electronic voice phenomena, Peninsula transports the viewer into a liminal space. Sparkes and Thompson have combined layers of sound and image to create a mesmerising yet disturbing journey in which the viewer travels, together with the films unsettling auditory and visual presence, to an uncertain conclusion. Live video and field recordings were processed using digital and analogue techniques to reorientate and displace the senses.

Exhibition runs from 13th May until 26th November 2017
Opening times
Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am - 6 pm
Address
Castello 1610/A
Riva dei Sette Martiri
Venezia 30122
EMPIRE II is curated by Vanya Balog

EMPIRE II has toured to many international venues. Read more on the EMPIRE website.

EMPIRE II Exhibition Catalogue

 

NTMoFA (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art) No Such Thing as Gravity

My work, The GHost Formula, is part of the exhibition, No Such Thing As Gravity, at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Taiwan from April 22 – June 25 2017.

No Such Thing As Gravity, exhibition poster, NTMoFA, 2017

 
Co-curated by Professor Mike Stubbs, director and CEO of FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool) and Dr Rob La Frenais, an international independent curator, art is used in this exhibition to explore the grey areas at the limits of science and other controversial issues, with emphasis placed on trans-disciplinary collaborations with contemporary art and science.

Artists
Tania CANDIANI, Yin-Ju CHEN, Gina CZARNECKI and John HUNT, Evelina DOMNITCH and Dmitry GELFAND, Nick LAESSING, Nahum MANTRA, Agnes MEYER-BRANDIS, Lab of Distant Relatives (Theresa Tsun-Hui TSAO, Chang-Huei GE, Mu-Ching WU), Helen PYNOR, Semiconductor, Sarah SPARKES

Sarah Sparkes 
"Walking the thin line between belief and observed data, collaborating with psychologists and paranormal investigators, created an installation The Ghost Formula to provide a neutral platform from which the visitor can investigate and interrogate the idea of the ghost. During her residency The GHost Exchange at NTMoFA, working with Taiwan based ghost researchers, psycologists, local historians and artists, Sarah will collect local Taiwan ghost stories for  GHost Portal web archive, to examine and document the cultural significance of human interaction with a spirit world"
(From NTMoFA Exhibition catalogue for 'No Such Thing As Gravity'. Read the full catalogue in Chinese and English on curator Rob La Frenais' website)

More about The GHost Formula here.http://www.sarahsparkes.com/blog/ntmofa-national-taiwan-museum-of-fine-art-no-such-thing-as-gravity/

GHost Residency
Sparkes will be undertaking a residency funded by the NTMoFA, in the weeks running up to the exhibition.  During this time she will be researching ghost culture in Taiwan and presenting this information on her website the GHost Portal.  Artifacts, used in Taiwan ghost rituals, will be added to her installation in the museum.
In addition Sparkes will convene one of her GHost Hostings, bringing together artists and researchers from Taiwan to discuss the idea of ‘Ghost Exchange’
Read more about GHost Hostings 18 here

About the Exhibition
British Council is pleased to support ‘No Such Thing As Gravity’ – an exhibition showcasing arts and creative technology presented by UK’s leading media art centre – Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool and National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA), the leading museum for digital arts and creativity in Taichung. Curated by Professor Mike Stubbs, artistic director of FACT and Dr. Rob La Frenais, guest curator from the UK, the exhibition attempts to explore the unknown areas and controversial issues in science through the lenses of artists and creative technologists.  Hosted at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts from April 22 to June 25, the exhibition will show to audience the trend of cross-disciplinary collaboration between contemporary art and science, responding to the questions of humanistic and philosophical perspectives in science.