Sculpture (MA)
Abigail Burt
BFA Falmouth 2012
Winston Churchill Fellow 2016
BAMS New Medallist 2013.
Events
09.20. Totally Thames.
10-13.02 KINDEN Media Series 2019, Exploring ‘Otherness’.
23.11.19 KIN Symposium. www.kinstinctarts.com/symposia
Residencies
2017-18 Continuum Artist Residency, Husk, London.
2017 The Island, Bristol.
2017 NN Project Space Residency, Northampton.
2016 Winston Churchill Fellowship, Nepal and India.
2015 International Artist Symposium, Bulgaria.
2013 Young Medallist Symposium, Bulgaria.
Exhibitions
13.06.20 Under-Growth, Conscious Isolation, Online show.
03.20 Dirty Hands and Revelations II, Standpoint Gallery, London.
09.19 Immerse, Husk, London.
02.19 The Petting Zoo, RCA, Kensington Gore.
01.19 WIP Show, RCA, Kensington Gore.
12.18 Miniatures and Medals, Sladmore Contemporary, London.
10.18 Burnt, Solo exhibition, Indo, Whitechapel, London.
05- 06.18 FIDEM Art medal exhibition, Canadian Museum of Nature. Ottawa.
04- 05.18 Solo Exhibition, Husk, Limehouse
01.03.18 Group Show, The Steamship, London.
10-11.18 Solo Exhibition, The Island, Bristol.
09.17 Solo Gallery Residency, The Island, Bristol.
05.17 Solo Project Space Exhibition, NN Contemporary, Northampton.
08- 11.17 China Numismatic Museum, China.
20.04.17 Celebrating 80, Goldsmith’s Centre, London.
Publications
Lost-Wax Casting: the revival of skills of the fading artisans
The focus of my practice is the interrogation of the connection we hold with our environment, drawing on personal experience, alongside the broader political context I am situated in, focusing often on global climate issues and our relationship with non-human species as a platform for wider dialogue. I approach this through an exploration of our relationship, and how it can be reconsidered, focusing on the undermining of the notion of ‘other’, hoping to provoke a reconsideration of our imposed perceptions of identity.
I am interested in how the overlooked, assumed aspects of our humanness can be teased into the spotlight, inspected, animated, as both individuals and as society as a whole. The secrets we contain, that rattle around internally until we crack, or suppressed until they are a part of ourselves that we forget was ever in question; the quieter voices that whisper in the shadows cast by the loud; the alternative ideas that echo underground, and stay underground.
My practice is multi-dimensional, focusing on audience participation and collective re-imagining. This often takes an object as a point of a collectivity, around which activity, performance and discussion circulate. For example, the pot in 'The Turmoil Pot', the May bug in 'Dragmoth', the chess set in 'Must One Kiss', the painted studio space in 'Kin.Den'. Sometimes the material process is used in a format inclusive of the audience. I am interested in the engagement between artist and viewer, and how this collaboration can influence the outcome of the work, as well as provoke the audience into new thoughts or a deeper connection with the artist. A large part of my practice is public and collaborative events, in which I bring together different practitioners to explore and research the themes behind my practice.
I have also recently begun to experiment with the possibilities that film, as a medium, provides. Film possesses the tools to demand an emotional and shifted perspective from the viewer, and it is a ‘pulling in’ of the audience that remains a large part of my work’s interrogation, having a drive to provoke my audience into reconsidering the framework we exist within.
The spit began to turn,
The Woodmen cleared the brake,
The Gardener mowed the lawn,
Woe’s me! And must one kiss,
Revoke the silent house,
the birdsong wilderness?
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Warner’s interpretation of Sleeping Beauty, as described further in Ursula le Guin’s short essay ‘The Wilderness Within’ feels refreshing and relevant. So different from the traditional reading of the Prince as saviour, as the only happy ending; the return to normality; the full sway of a busy household and a princess happily married, humans progressing in their daily endeavours. This contemplation of the value of the pause, the beauty in ‘the silent house, the birdsong wilderness’, resonates with the time we find ourselves in. The pandemic has forced a global pause, and although there are devastating effects of Covid-19, both on humans and the environment, the reduction in movement and activity has given wilderness a chance to revive.
Contemplating this pause, the value of allowing wilderness to possess some time of its own, ‘Must One Kiss’ sees a bronze cast chess set made of plants placed within an abandoned and overgrown stone quarry. Plants have sprung up across the vast pits, and the trace of human activity is slowly giving in to wild undergrowth. The chess game is a poetic suggestion of time passing and the perception of varying time scales, the pace of the Universal unfolding far slower than that which we relate to in our own life times; the interconnectedness of material through process and elemental transformation; the relationship between humans with each other and with their environment, through the tactile appreciation of the bronze pieces and the engagement with the disused quarry; and the choices we make as time progresses, reflected through the simple narrative and each move made in the game, and asking the viewer to consider the alternative choices we have in the remobilisation of life as we knew it.
The slow enactment of a game takes place, neither player present simultaneously, hesitant to interact, connected by the object and yet separated by time and space. These sentiments are prevalent in the time we are living through, our communication continuous and yet stilted through social media and technology, and our desires to connect as strong as ever and yet suspended by a forced separation imposed by the fears of the virus.
Director of Photography - Ben Halford
www.instagram.com/halfordfilms
Medium:
VideoSize:
5.58
Beeswax and local plants
Wax working in the studio
Beginnings of the chess pieces
Wax 'trees' for bronze casting process.
Ceramic shell
Pouring bronze in the artists portable foundry
Raw bronze pieces
The 'white' set, patina experiments
Patination using copper nitrate
Behind the scenes filming Must One Kiss
Filming in the disused iron stone quarry
The bronze chess set.
How do we connect in a time when fear permeates closeness, when rules are laid down globally enforcing physical distance from the people we encounter? How can the emotions of a journey be captured? The transition of time be relayed, and the ongoing connection between self and environment, the mind/nature loop. Eyes observe, mind directs the body, hands draw, feet walk forwards, ground resists, we move forwards.
Continue. A continuous drawing of a journey, a translation of an experience, a record of a passage, a visual representation of a relationship with temporality. The Scroll Walks create a juncture between an encounter with time, through time and in being with both a changing environment and the people met along the journey. Each scroll encompasses a glimpse into the experiences of other people, their position in the unfolding and the unavoidable interconnectedness we are all a part of. The scroll becomes an object of exchange, the artist presents an action, translated through body to physical drawing, and in exchange for stories. The exchange acts as an offering, a poignant moment of trust. Listen, record, retell. Learn, empathise, connect.
Medium:
videoSize:
3.29 + 0.55Watch the livestream on Twitch here!
Medium:
Participatory performanceSize:
6 hrs
I have time
Medium:
Participatory performance.Size:
12-6pm 18.07.20![[untitled]](https://res.cloudinary.com/rca2020/image/upload/w_1920,f_auto,q_auto/v1594245182/gatsby-cloudinary/5f031848ff2b444e5ff064e9-623466-resize-1920-2560)
Look at the website for events happening physically during RCA2020.
Medium:
Ongoing HappeningsSize:
16- 31.07.20In Collaboration with:
The Founders Company's Donnagh McKenna Award
Website:
http://www.dmkart.comStudent Performance: I H a v e T i m e
Student Performance: How Will We Choose Our Next Move?