We were two of twenty artists, curators and writers selected to take part in Centrifuge, an extensive international collaborative project based around research, travel, discussion and critique. The project took as its starting point a research trip to Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany in August 2007, and a budget of £10,000 (loosely aimed/allocated/designated to at raising the national and international profile of the North of England's creative industries).
Through an ongoing process of dialogue and negotiation over the next 18 months we developed a self reflexive "art prize" structure which functioned as a vehicle for a number of discussions, friendships and collaborations with local, national and international artists nominated by each member of the group.
A short-run publication due for completion late 2009 will aim to document the process and outline some of the issues interrogated by the project, including systems of support and validation for artists, internationalism vs parochialism, collectivity and democracy.
| Project Participants: David Baker Alice Bradshaw Chris Henry Clarke Matthew Cowan Katie Davies Kate Day Catherine Elvin Rosie Farrell Evi Grigoropoulou Laura Harrington Zoe Johnson Gaz Leddington Rebecca Lennon Tim Machin Pete McPartlan Daniel Simpkins Nick Thurston Ruth Todhunter Tom Watson Penny Whitehead |
Art Prize nominees: Ahmet ögüt, Turkey WebsterGotts, UK Graeme Stonehouse, UK Snowdrop the Mechanical Elephant, UK Albert Heta, Kosovo Gintaras Didziapetris, Lithuania Kelly Large, UK Ztohoven, Czech Republic wooloo, Germany Anna Livia Lowendahl-Atomic, Germany Ann Lislegaard, Holland The Institute for Figuring, USA g727, USA Rod Dickinson, UK Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir & Mark Wilson, UK Becky Beasley, UK |
Centrifuge was devised and delivered by the Salford Restoration Office on behalf of Manchester Metropolitan University as part of the Northern Way funded Northern Edge initiative, with support from artists Imogen Stidworthy and Dirk Fleischmann, and the Northern Edge.
View project map here