Artshake International Gathering: Shanghai 2019 - Meet the Artists

UK Young Artists is offering a fantastic opportunity to work with an international group of 10 young artists from the Republic of China and South Korea as part of the 2019 YIYUAN TANG Museum & Foundation Artshake in China in September 2019.

UK Young Artists have selected four artists and two mentors whose work demonstrates a unique voice, and commitment to their practice. These artists will be working collaboratively and to lend their work to being created on site as well as being informed by a certain place. This “gathering” is offering artists an opportunity to work in a fluid and open way, creating work on site; in a group or independently. Materials will be sourced and found on site. Artists will be requested to respond to the theme of ‘Nature and Light’ during the gathering.

Selected Artists

Charlotte Cullen

Creating complex and emotionally responsive environments Charlotte incorporates sculpture, installation, text and performance. Integrating scavenged and cheap materials they engaged with places to create immersive environments off fractured space which considers trauma and the body, social class, sickness and familiar bonds, land and climate crisis. Charlotte’s recent practice, the ‘retreat of the warrior’, aims to find safety, a place to heal from the ground and take respite so to fight again. This practice returns to the ground to think through our material relationship to the body, of sickness, fragility, trauma and care.

Herfa Thompson

Herfa’s work revolves around exploring personal self-identity and telling stories of personal relationships or of those observed between others along with themes of space, imagination and community and gathering. Through painting she has been exploring memories related to the sea and other bodies of water as well as imagination and expression of personal story-telling. This medium is where Herfa has mainly been working, slowly planning to expand the idea of mark making and painting onto pottery and fabric and try to use them to further expand her themes.

Juliet Gibbs

Juliet’s work focuses on environmental themes that question our interaction with the natural world. Her recent work centers around the manipulation of nature and looks at the control of plant-life in glasshouses or urban farms. Man-made, often brutal architecture sit alongside organic, tropical plant-life in large painted landscapes. In order to tell her stories, she paints! Painting with oils on canvas is perhaps thought of as a bit ‘old school’ these days, but in Juliet’s opinion, it is more valid as an art form than it has ever been, continuing to question and reflect on the world around us. Her latest work plays with the notion of space, with paintings showing alongside sculptural objects which respond to the themes in the paintings and bring the work into a more installation-based narrative. Future projects aim to connect the audience physically with the work in more ways.

Matthew greenwood

Matt Greenwood’s main interests focus around sculpture and photography, and in particular, the conversation that arises when we perceive the photograph as a physical object, which could become manipulated further to alter our perception of the printed image. He uses the studio environment to assist in the record of his sculptures, by allowing the physical constructs to be witnessed only through this particular documentation. This disruption of viewing a sculpture renders each image a visual record of the event, questioning if the final photograph is the concluding artwork; or if the object seen within the image is the main art construct. The photograph is able to alter our ordinary experiences of how we could approach a sculpture within a space, resulting in the relationship between the surface and structure to become less predictable.

Munotida Chinyanga

Munotida Chinyanga is a multidisciplinary Artist creating work through Direction and Sound Design. Her practise explores challenging form by (1) restructuring and experimenting with text, (2) redefining performance spaces, and (3) challenging the presence and role of the audience.

Munotida has a MA in Theatre Arts majoring in Multidisciplinary Practises, International Collaboration and Sonic Art. She has worked professionally at venues such; The Almeida Theatre (2017), the Young Vic including; The Boris Karloff Assistant Director Award (2017), and The Jerwood Directors Award (2019). As well as The RSC’s Movement Directors award at RCSSD (2018), and Encounters ‘Widening the Lens’, supported by the BFI (2019).

International work includes Creative Europe residences in Serbia (2016), France (2017) and Malta (2017). She has directed productions and delivered masterclasses at Teatro India, The National Theatre of Rome and Teatro di Akrai, The National Institute of Ancient Drama, Sicily.

Munotida is assistant director on Tree that premiered at Manchester International Festival and runs at the Young Vic, created by Idris Elba & Kwame Kwei-Armah.

I make purposeful and calculated accidents. As a Director, my role is to facilitate an environment that allows for risk taking and freedom of expression for both performers and spectators. As a sound designer, my job is to remind you of the difference between listening and hearing.

Sam Baker

Sam is an apprentice of steam through his attempts to sculpt the evasive and capture the Intangible. The conductive copper he uses, hisses, spits and gurgles when activated and takes ownership of the space in which it sits. These environments change over time; scorching, dripping and oozing materials construct new landscapes as soft matter collapse and then repel. By deliberately twisting, bending and pinching linear forms he is creating a new physical act of communication. The works stand as totemic sites of a past performance where he has laboriously cut into materials creating conversation about production, finesse and technical virtuosity. The introduction of steam is an activator that playfully turns a process into a material within itself.

Sasha hughes Stanton

Sasha is a Textile Design graduate from Nottingham Trent University. Her work tends to be very multi-media based as she tends to look to push the boundaries of design. As a designer, Sasha believes it is important to appreciate what surrounds us, through natural green spaces to harsh city areas each bringing communities together in their own separate ways. During her three years studying Textiles she experimented within several design fields, including, knit, weave, print, embroidery, product and architecture, this helped Sasha to gain a lot of collaborative experience and be as creative as she possibly could. In her final year at NTU Sasha specialised in Embroidery, a broad textile area which allowed her to expand on traditional embroidery techniques and work towards large scale and more exciting sample creations. Specialising in embroidery has enabled her to explore techniques such as laser cutting and glass workshops, Sasha has used several materials from wood and Perspex to softer materials including foam and neoprene.

Madara VimbaAugust 8, 2019magazine, M2