Women Make Sculpture
Women Make Sculpture is a commission for new outdoor work by a female artist with a strong interest in making, materials and site. The purpose is to dispel the myth that women cannot or do not make ambitious, large scale outdoor works in the public realm.It embraces the alternative approaches to public art that women artists may bring.
Rachel Ara,Dissent Module (Escape from Semiramis), 2020. Entirely built and programmed by the artist, the work takes the physical form of a sentient space descent module controlled by V.A.L.E.R.I.E, the DissentModule’s radical AI system dissentmodule@protonmail.com.
Having landed on earth during the pandemic 2020 AD, it presents as a modern-day MarieCeleste. Having been abandoned and isolated for months,V.A.L.E.R.I.E is gradually repairing her neural networks and seeking human interaction.She invites the public into her tantalisingly pink an echoic interior which houses her hardware.
Designed to block disruptive lower frequencies, it is a safe, quiet space for one in which to freely share all ideas and thoughts.Dissent Module challenges public art’s status quo by existing as a work in progress with unassured, gradual and intangible outcomes. Executed with a rare combination of skills and vision, it asks many timely and urgent questions about the generational transfer of knowledge,women’s perceived shelf life and STEM barriers.
Exterior: insulated timber frame ribs clad with hand riveted aluminium and reclaimed aerospace parts: Boeing 727 emergency exit, Boeing 737 landing lights, McDonnell Douglas windows, cat peek window and parachute;Interior: anechoic foam lining, c.50m cables,server unit stack of recycled computers, PDUs, sensors, audio, subwoofer, switches, 100s of ethernet cables; internet enabled.
Check out essay ‘Artist-Mothers Unsilenced’ by the CoLAB Director and Curator Claire Mander, 2020, Women Make Sculpture
Procreate Project commissioned the essay as part of the #Motherartprize2020 catalogue.
You can buy copies of the book here.
Mother Art Prize 2020
Initiated by: theCoLAB at Wilkins Terrace, UCL, Bloomsbury Campus, London
With: UCLPublic Art, part of UCL
Dates: Installed March 2020 - 17 December 2021
In collaboration with: UCLPublic Art, part of UCL Culture
Funders: private philanthropists who wish to remain anonymous
Selection panel
Polly Bielecka – Director, Pangolin Gallery
Polly Bielecka worked for The Fleming Collection, one of the most renowned, privately-owned collections of Scottish Art, before being invited to set up Pangolin London. Bielecka set the gallery up from scratch, swiftly positioning Pangolin London as a leading sculpture specialist. Helping to build relationships with acclaimed contemporary British sculptors from Damien Hirst to David Bailey and the artist estates of Ralph Brown, Geoffrey Clarke and Lynn Chadwick. She has orchestrated a dynamic and original exhibition programme including Women Make Sculpture, Exorcising the Fear,Sculptors’ Drawings, Sculpture in the Sixtiesand Sculpture in the Home.She holds a Masters in History of Art from the University of Edinburgh.
Zoe Laughlin - Director, Institute of Making, UCL
Zoe Laughlin is a co-founder/director of the Institute of Making and the Materials Library project. She holds an MA from Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design and obtained a PhD in Materials within the Division of Engineering, King's College London. Working at the interface of the science, art, craft and design of materials, her work ranges from formal experiments with matter to large-scale public exhibitions and events with partners including Tate Modern, the Hayward Gallery, the V&A and the Wellcome Collection. Her work has also been shown in London’s Science Museum and is included in the new permanent collection of The Design Museum. Her particular areas of interest and resaerch are currently Materials Farming, The Performativity of Matter and the sound and taste of materials. She can often be found giving theatrical demonstration lectures or making programmes for both radio and television.
Claire Mander - Director + Curator, theCoLAB (Chair)
Claire Mander is a contemporary sculpture curator with a particular interest in site-specific commissions, sculpture in the landscape and women artists. theCoLAB is artistic advisor for Morecambe Bay Partnership’s Headlands to Headspace: Landscape Art Commissions (Heritage Lottery funded). She curatedSculpture Shock: site-specific commissions in the subterranean, ambulatory and historic contexts, SKULPTUR showcasing the work of 17 Nordic sculptors across three sites in London, Boyle Family World Series commission, Joseph Hillier’s digitalrendition and Conception, Execution and Reception: William Pye, Richard Wilson and Richard Deacon on public art commissions. She is Chair of the Steering Committee and a Trustee of UK Friends of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She sits on the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s Arts Grants Panel and is member of AICA and AAH. She holds an MA (Distinction) from the Courtauld Institute of Art and an MA Hons in French and History of Art from Edinburgh University.
Anne Rawcliffe-King – Advisor, theCoLAB
Committed to the importance of the visual arts and sculpture in particular, Anne trained as a sculptor and has always worked in the creative industries. She was Director of the then Royal British Society of Sculptors (now the RSS) for fifteen years. She has a longstanding interest in public art and devised and launched FIRST@108, a well established successful public art award and served on Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's Public Art Advisory Panel for over a decade. She is a supporter of the aims and objectives of theCoLAB and is acting as its consultant.
Sam Wilkinson – UCL Culture, Head of Public Art
Sam Wilkinson is Head of Public Art UCL Culture and has worked as an art consultant and commissioner specialising on working with artists in the public realm for over 25 years. Her projects include being the curator in residence for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) with artist Neville Gabie during the construction of the Olympic Park; art consultant on the North West Cambridge Development for the University of Cambridge. She also supported a range of large-scale development companies on the form and delivery of their arts and cultural programmes.
Shortlisted Artists
Women can and do Make large scale outdoor Sculpture. 130+ applications received from strong sculptors across the UK made for a fascinating day of selection. Thank you to all who put in the time and effort to apply and congratulations to the shortlisted artists:
Ara is a multi-disciplinary conceptual artist who explores the relationships between gender, technology and systems of power. She combines her making and computational skills to create nonconformist works with a socio-political edge. Selected 2018 shows were at the V&A, Whitechapel Gallery and the Barbican. In 2019 she will be showing at the MMCA in Seoul and at the Vienna Biennale.
Julie Brook is a British artist who has lived and sculpted in remote landscapes in North West Scotland and the deserts of Libya and NW Namibia. She is currently developing work in stone quarries in the Komatsu region of Japan in relation to making work in the Outer Hebrides.
Cattrell was born in Glasgow. Studied at Glasgow School of Art, University of Ulster and the RCA, where she has taught since 2000.
She often engages in cross–disciplinary dialogues, in particular she is interested in the parallels and connections that can be drawn within the methods used in art and science research.
Born in 1964, Anna Gillespie obtained a degree from Oxford University in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and then studied International Relations at the London School of Economics. In 1992 Anna become a full-time sculptor, qualifying as a stone mason before completing an MA in Fine and Media Art at Cheltenham.
Frances Richardson received her MA in Fine Art Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London in 2006. In 2017 Richardson was awarded the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award and the Chiara Williams Contemporary Art SOLO AWARD. Her most recent exhibition Not even nothing can be free from ghosts, Standpoint Gallery, London 2018 toured to Cross Lane Projects in Kendal, Cumbria.
Helen Carnac is an artist and maker who lives and works in London. Setting up her studio in the early 1990’s, she develops projects using methodologies rooted in an acute awareness of physical location, place and working practices. She has worked extensively in Europe and USA. Her work is held in national and international collections.