The Grounds We Tread
Date uploaded: March 2, 2016
Pump House Gallery has announced 'The Grounds We Tread', a new programme led by international and emerging contemporary artists responding to Battersea Park and the rapidly changing urban landscape of Wandsworth and Nine Elms. Exploring ideas of public space and intimacy, the programme also marks the relaunch of Pump House Gallery as a new contemporary art space for London, supported by Arts Council England and Wandsworth Council.
The Grounds We Tread launches in April with a show of the same name featuring Jiří Kovanda, Lloyd Corporation, Ilona Sagar and Cara Tolmie. The artists – who show consecutively throughout the exhibition - present individual performative works and exhibitions that dynamically transform the Gallery and the spaces beyond. New commissions and existing works explore the fascination with tracking our health through technology; the power of live singing in social clubs, karaoke bars and elsewhere; amateur forms of advertising and announcement in public places; and the negotiation and use of public and private areas.
In August, Samara Scott creates a new installation following a residency working with local organisations, and research into local industrial history including the starch and silk manufacturers, and saltpetre and chemical works that were once based in Battersea. The work will evolve from a period of testing, experimenting and reworking materials that are changed by time and the natural environment.
Concluding the programme in October, Each fighting it’s own little battle in happy ignorance is a group exhibition featuring Lawrence Abu-Hamdan, Harun Farocki and others, inspired by Graham Greene’s 1934 novel It’s a Battlefield, set in Wandsworth and written when he was living in Battersea.
In response to identified exhibition themes, other artists are working on projects with Gallery visitors, families, local residents from nearby estates, schools and other cultural organisations. Rosalie Schweiker is working in the Gallery’s Project Space with local residents during The Grounds We Tread, and Jasleen Kaur is working with local families during Samara Scott’s exhibition. Beyond the Gallery, the OutHouse programme will work with the local community, Orly Orbach will work with St Mary’s Primary School; and Pencil & Help and CoDa Dance with local families and West Hill Primary School at Southside Shopping Centre.
Paul McCue, Managing Director of Enable Leisure, said: “The Grounds We Tread offers a dynamic and thought-provoking programme for new and existing audiences to engage with, which will re-energise Pump House Gallery, and reflect our ongoing commitment to the contemporary art landscape locally, across London, and beyond.”
Throughout 2016 a series of In-Conversation events, performances and live music bring together artists, academics and other cultural practitioners to explore the concepts presented in The Grounds We Tread.
Pump House Gallery has presented a year round programme of contemporary visual art since 1999 including most recently, Take the leap by Faisal Abdu’Allah and At Home by Hetain Patel in 2014, and The First Humans by Caroline Achaintre, Salvatore Arancio, Vidya Gastaldon, Andy Harper, Ben Rivers and Jack Strange in 2015.
A new website for Pump House Gallery launches in April 2016.
For further information click here.
