Penny Whitehead and Daniel Simpkins: projects

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* Penny Whitehead and Daniel Simpkins

2009
	Fortress Europe A video installation presenting a polemic on European immigration policies. Footage was shot over the course of a day in two nearby Austrian villages, one being the location of a controversial refugee camp and the other the home and political safe haven of the former leader of the American Klu-Klux-Klan.
	In Situ 66: Revealing Contemporary Struggles A video installation which aimed to inscribe in to the streets of Linz, Austria the troubling events surrounding the anti-fascist demonstration of 1 May 2009 which was brutally broken up by the police through highly aggressive methods such as tear gas, beating with batons and ‘kettling’.
	Protest kit no. 67: FREE Occupying the front of the Salzamt, the new flagship art institution in Linz, Austria for a week, this banner made a pseudo-political declaration in opposition to the cultural elitism in which it, we and our work were implicit as invited guests of the venue.
	Translocation An exhibition in Linz, Austria presenting a series of experimental projects, subversive actions and interventions around issues of immigration, neo-fascism, cultural elitism and the control of public space that we produced whilst in the city for a 3 month artist residency.
	Linz kulturhauptstadt 09 A 3 month residency in Linz, Austria as part of a one-off project Urban Interventions: Artistic Perspectives (UIAP) in which we continue to ask questions of the commercial, political and cultural strategies adopted by cities during their tenure as the European Capital of Culture.
	We, The Others: Marketing Suite We collaborated with Sheffield-based duo No Fixed Abode in constructing a raft as a literal and metaphorical platform for exploring ideas of community, contemporary colonialism and the ownership and control of urban space in the wake of the economic meltdown and subsequent property crash.
	Artists of the World Unite! (with caution) Developed for the event INTERNATIONALE: A project to radicalise the notion and practice of internationalism in the arts, this video work seeks to ask questions around art tourism, the proliferation of English as the International Art Language, and the fetishisation of art from zones of conflict.
	ARCADE Project: Sacrifice Zone Following our viral newspaper project Future Visions of History – see 2008 projects below – we were invited to contribute to an online series of commissions by artists and writers examining the links between art and regeneration agendas.
2008
	Future Visions of History A one-off newspaper distributed virally throughout Liverpool over the course of a day, offering a temporary alternative to the cultural propaganda that proliferated throughout the Capital of Culture 08 programme.
	Closed Studio We staged the compulsory purchase of our studio by Liverpool City Council as part of a city-wide “Open Studio” weekend.
	F A N T A S T I C A collective project centred around the weekly ritual of playing the National Lottery, FANTASTIC aims to raise questions about UK arts funding and to provide a structure in which alternative systems and approaches can be explored.
	Sheffield to Paris in Under Six Hours We collaborated with a fabric trader from Sheffield’s largest market on a one-day event drawing links between artists and independent traders as they become increasingly displaced from city centres by globalised commercial redevelopment.
	Centrifuge An extensive international collaborative project based around research, travel, collectivity and discussion.
	Swing That Art Bat: BEAT ATTACK THWACK! An exploration of the power structures underpinning contemporary artistic practice, as part of a month-long programme organised by No Fixed Abode exploring the metaphor of a bat as a representation of an artist’s cultural “weight” or status.
2007
	HOST As a group of six recent graduates we collaborated on an experimental exhibition and series of activities, dialogues, encounters and events, based around themes of social and hierarchical positions, cultural networks, hospitality, intrusion and occupation.
2006
	Objects In Waiting 221 artists contributed to Objects in Waiting, exhibiting objects / ideas / research material meant for use in an artwork but never realised, revealing the underlying processes of inquiry, evaluation and censorship determining artistic practice.
	GIFT Following Objects in Waiting a series of encounters ensued which aimed to liberate the objects from their previous owners and vice versa, and demonstrate the politics of exchange and reciprocation inherent in gift-giving.
	THE END A collaboratively curated group show featuring more than sixty graduating artists and symposia on Collaborative Curating and Institutions.
	Throwing Something At Boxes, 2006 An intervention into Rachel Whiteread's installation Embankment and Jonathan Meese's performance Noel Coward is Back: Dr. Humpty Dumpty vs Fra No-finger at the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern.

* Projects by Penny Whitehead


2009
	The Royal Standard I am director of an artist-led studio, gallery and social workspace in Liverpool with an active programme of talks, screenings, exhibitions and residencies and more than 25 studio holders.
2007
	May I Introduce... I curated a mini-festival of performances and interventions by undergraduate art students, aiming to contest the hierarchical structure of he Sheffield art scene and instigate collaboration and integration across the graduation divide.
2006
	Art in the Pub A series of monthly live / video art events that I initiated and continued to co-curate throughout my final year at Sheffield Hallam University, providing a platform for students to experiment with live / video art, installation and intervention in a social setting outside of the university / gallery context.
2005
	Lantern Theatre I organised, co-curated and performed in a one-off event at the Lantern Theatre, Sheffield, working with over thirty artists on a diverse range of performances, installations and interventions.

* Projects by Daniel Simpkins


2009
	Relational Athletics Amassed as a contribution to British Artists Football, Liverpool's premier artist football team combines the two seemingly disparate worlds of art and football to provide an alternative perspective from which to explore the two.
2008
	30 Minutes in Silence I was one of 50 'experts' that contributed to Blackmarket: An Installation with 50 Experts, a Digression on the Rhetorics of Dialogue and a Shadow Play for a Dialogue Duo as part of the Liverpool Biennial 2008.
	What Price Autonomy? As Higher Education reached crisis point What Price Autonomy? explored the implications of national education reforms on the future of academic and professional arts practices.
2007
	The Winners A one-night exhibition that was sold throughout its duration as part of The Royal Standard Turner Prize Extravaganza! was the first in a programme of unique one-off events bringing together studio members and artists from across the UK to respond to elements of the Liverpool-based organisation's context and locality.
	The Dissemination of (Re)Evolutionary Ideas For the BLOCassembly#7, titled Time, I co-ordinated a series of hopeful interventions by a number of anonymous participants selected for their active and invested interests in current, local affairs.
	HOST: Past / Possible / Provisional A series of walking guides, site-specific texts and walking discussions focussed on the critique of the physiology, sociology, culture and economy of a single moment in a rapidly changing urban environment.
2006
	O B S E R V E R / D (may take a few seconds to load) Following the dubious 22/07 police shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes in Stockwell Underground station this work was conceived to highlight the subjectivity of surveillance and to expose the proliferation of institutional observation in the context of a university faculty.