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I’m an international guest at Foundation BAD in Southern Rotterdam – an artist run extravaganza of a place. Based in an old school, originally squatted, it provides both studios and homes for 30ish people who share and co-organise. I am here for a month building on the recently completed ACE project and the Venice work before that – namely improvised landscapes and approaches that are reactions/acclimatisation to some kind of stress.

Rotterdam is the result of a unique history and ambition. Its stress I am assuming is environmental. But unlike Venice it doesn’t feel fragile or tramped or a ruin afloat. It doesn’t feel like Jaywick battling poverty and the sea or the Houseboats of Heachem cobbled together. Instead I see ‘the world’ or better still ‘an improvised world’ – the result of a colonial past. Sveltana Alpers in her great book The Art of Describing said something about Dutch artworks that makes sense here: dont read these paintings as metaphors rather see them for the description of whats already here.

Yesterday saw me finish the Bromley House Library residency with a sharing and discussion event. It was a lovely morning of conversation, exploring and reflecting on ideas and connecting to others. I am very grateful for the opportunity to work at BHL and have loved the time and glad of the friendships made. Below is part of the talk I presented before I asked the question to catalyse a conversation: Do you want to be truly seen…. ? 

Bromley is a place that cares for and supports legacies, collections of Books and maps and docs and photos and pamplets etc. Items created by people which in effect allows ‘them’  ‘people’ to be kept. I was struck by this very early on as we are surrounded by attempts at being remembered. As I maker I identify with this.

I wondered whether BHL was, and this sounds grand,  fending off existential concerns – fending off being forgotten.  But when I thought more I realised it’s not about being ‘remembered’ rather ‘ noticed’ – seen – cared for. This chimed with people I spoke to about how this this place met their desires and needs. It matched my sense of it too. And I  found it too in the ambition or actions of the staff . So I thought hard about being forgotten. Why given all the knowledge, words, possibilities available to me here had this become the thing I was attracted too?  

I read some science and began to know that being forgotten is as detrimental to self-esteem as being ostracised or rejected. And there is was… it was about being marginalised… a theme central to my practice. My attraction to BHL wasn’t rational it was emotional. BHL is holding a space for people – which in therapeutic terms means ‘a safe place where people are seen and healing can happen’. It was a refuge / a solace. But here was the problem which if im honest I’ve grappled with for the whole residency. How do you represent in a meaningful way notions of being forgotten or being seen? And it’s only very recently have I worked out what the right thing to do was and why.

I’m pleased to have been invited to be part of this months CVAN East Midlands – Meet the Artist. Follow this link to read the full interview

Thank you so much to Haarlem’s Geoff and Livvy for hosting such a great night and thank you too for those who attended. It was a lovely way to spend an evening talking and thinking about art while eating lovely food with good company.

Event info: Friday March 8th at Haarlem Artspace: Pie, Pea and Cake Dinner with talk by Kate Genever and curator David Gilbert. Part of a 10 year survey show. Come join us for a veggie Pie & Pea dinner and there is a free drink included! Arrive at 7 to see the show upstairs where David Gilbert and Kate have curated a show from Kate’s archive. The event is raising money for Haarlem Artspace’s ground floor wall build.

Sunday 17th March, 4.30pm – 6.00pm: ‘The presence of books’ – an event at Five Leaves Bookshop.
An afternoon of conversation and discovery that encourages guests to consider the historic role of books, libraries and their staff in offering refuge and safe spaces. Join us at Five Leaves to experience a small piece of Bromley House Library in association with Bromley House Library artist in residence, Kate Genever. Afternoon Tea will be served.
Free event – 20 places only. Please book via Five Leaves Bookshop: events@fiveleaves.co.uk

Saturday 23rd March, 10.30am -12.30pm: I loved you, you just didn’t see it.
A discursive event to reflect on Kate’s residency at Bromley House Library. Kate will discuss and showcase the work she has made as part of this 2-month project that centres around the theme ‘Hidden Refuge’. There will also be an opportunity to walk around the library and find out about the work that Kate, and users of the library, have produced during her residency. Coffee and Cake will be served.
Free event – 12 places only. Please book via Bromley House Library: enquiries@bromleyhouse.org

Using phrases collected from visitors and library members I have been making new pieces for hiding in books across the entire library collection. It’s been really nice to read personal responses from people about the importance BHL and then place hide them for future readers to make sense of.

Art History – can you draw me a diagram opens on Saturday 16th at 7pm at Haarlem Artspace in Wirksworth. It’s a show I’ve Curated with David Gilbert using all the artworks I still have in my studio. I’ve also made some prints to accompany the show that are for sale with 50% of sales going to support Haarlem Artspace. See in the shop for more info.

As I emptied my space of the last 12 years of work it was nice to see old work anew, remember people I’ve worked with and places I’ve explored. It was difficult too, seeing the same ideas worked and reworked with no concrete solution found! David and I have written this to accompany the work

Art History: Do you want me to draw you a diagram?
Our art culture makes no attempt to search the past for precedents but transforms the entire past into a sequence of provisional responses to a problem that remains in intact. Georges André Malraux  
There is always a temptation to try to come up with a Universal Theory of Everything, to understand or make sense of what we are doing and making. This has been at the core of the work David and Kate have undertaken in relation to Kate’s practice and its outcomes. Since 2008 they have come together repeatedly to look at Kate’s work and have often used diagrams by leading cultural theorists to think with and describe its repeated re-iterations. But all these diagrams, and Kate and David’s, have proven to be inadequate. All are – inevitably – provisional responses.  
This collaboration has seen them looking back over Kate’s archive of work and considering its current concerns against those of 2008, which placed Kate and her work in the Wider World. In response, they have generated this show and a new diagram which attempts to redefine the relationship between Kate, the work and the Wider World.  The layering of the work on the walls and tables is deliberately archaeological and is a direct attempt to visually undermine a linear historical narrative. It creates physical and temporal overlaps and allows unexpected glimpses of works in each other.

I’ve received ACE funding to support a residency at the BHL and Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottigham City Centre – to explore and consider the role of these places on the lives of their users. The funding will enable me to work alongside staff, library members, customers and visitors, creating new works in response to research.

TIn getting started I held a free workshop at BHL yesterday, using the Alan Sillitoe and the Sundial Society archives as catalysts. We talked about the idea of books, bookshop and libraries being Refuges and how using the words of others can help us say something we cant.

I’ve been invited to work by Lakelands Arts at Abbott Hall to develop ideas in response to their upcoming show ‘Refuge – the art of belonging’. An exhibition featuring artists who settled in the Lakes after being displaced due to religion, politics or the type of art they make. Their ambitions for this commission is to bring new audiences to the gallery and build better relationships with communities who live nearby.

While adapting found postcards of Heachem I’ve been thinking about the real house/boat/houses found behind the dunes. My postcards are in one sense useful ‘thinking through doing things’ or ‘thoughts in the act’. Undertaken to understand and question both the work and the boats. All of which made me realise that this is in many ways waht the boathouses are too – ‘thoughts in the act’. Sites where intangible knowledge, feelings, innate behaviours, skills are revealed as form and like the thoughts that made them – changing, adapted and abandoned when neceessary.