Urgency, Wit and Rigour

There are common interests in some of the projects and works I’ve selected (race, allyship and the archive), but really this list represents a broad range of practices that drew me in with their urgency, wit and rigour. A few projects responded compellingly to the screen-based conditions of exhibition while others succeeded in spite of these conditions. I’ve singled out So Remember the Liquid Ground from the Curating Contemporary Art projects. I enjoyed the project’s singular premise and the confidence and the ease with which it exists online, settling into a new mode of display without being tempted to be unnecessarily self-reflexive.

John Bloomfield

So remember the liquid ground
RCA Group Project: So remember the liquid ground
Extract — from The Flood
Bryony Bodimeade's If calves do cry: The Flood
Colouring In (Kitchen) 5 — acrylic on canvas, 80 x 60 cm
Olivia Sterling's Colouring In series
Developing the Play — Image 1 theatrical poster by Arjun Singh. Image 2 (composite images) by James Ireland and ŠITE Productions. Image 3 The Team.
James Ireland's Rajesh and Naresh
Ornithanthropon 1480/2020
Arieh Frosh's Ornithranopon, and-on-and-on
Make Me Save, Video Stills 01
Peter Spanjer's Make Me Safe
Mayssa Kanaan's Collections
Mayssa Kanaan's City Library For Commons Collections

Curator Biography

John Bloomfield

John Bloomfield is the curator of Wysing Arts Centre. John joined Wysing in July 2016. He works on the organisation’s programme of residencies, exhibitions, events, partnership projects and digital projects. At Wysing, he has curated the exhibitions ‘All His Ghosts Must Do My Bidding’, ‘more of an avalanche’, ‘Warm Worlds and Otherwise’, and ‘All Channels Open’. John also co-ordinates the Syllabus programme, a collaboratively produced alternative learning programme that supports ten artists each year.

Before Wysing, John was an editor at Black Dog Publishing alongside which he worked as a freelance curator, developing exhibitions and projects for Arcadia Missa, Flat Time House, MOT International and Tate. John has worked for the British Film Institute and Rich Mix, London and has also worked for the artist Isaac Julien.

John has an MA in Film Studies from UCL, London.

Photo of John Broomfield