Substance - Portsmouth Artists Book Event

Substance - Portsmouth Artists Book Event
Substance - Portsmouth Artists Book Event

Tuesday 10 October 2017

Press release - Event Partners




  

Portsmouth Artists Book Event in association with Aspex Portsmouth, is proud to welcome and announce two new Event Partners.
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Danny Aldred, teaches on the BA Graphic Arts course at Winchester School of Art. Danny set up Book-lab.org. in March 2013, presenting New Art Of Making Books conference. NAMB explored the transformation of the artist book and the connection between physical and digital media.

In 2015 Danny co-published Code-x, a series of essays further exploring ideas from the first conference.

Substance
 organiser Dave Kirby says, "Substance happily coincides perfectly with the fifth anniversary of the New Art Of Making Books conference organised by Danny in 2013, and we are delighted to have Danny co-curating Substance".
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The BA Illustration course at the University of Portsmouth have very kindly agreed to host two lectures and workshops with Substance artists. The first will be on November 17th with Guy Begbie. Look out for more details of these events in the coming weeks.
Dr Maureen O'Neill is a senior lecturer on the BA Illustration course at the School of Art and Design at the University of Portsmouth and curator of The Ministry of Books.


The Ministry Of Books is an artist book collection and research initiative that holds a fascinating archive of purchases, donations, staff and student production. The aim is to support, promote, encourage and strengthen the production of Artists' Books at the University of Portsmouth.
We are delighted to be able to present a selection of works from The Ministry Of Books at Aspex as part of the Substance event.
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For further information please contact Dave Kirby or Danny Aldred,
Portsmouth Artists Book Event - artistbooksportsmouth@gmail.com
Winchester School of Art - d.aldred@soton.ac.uk
Aspex Portsmouth -
www.aspex.org.uk

Tuesday 11 July 2017

Press Release - Venue//Date Announcement

'SUBSTANCE' 
Portsmouth Artists Book Event 2018 at Aspex Portsmouth
Sunday 18th March 2018 – 10am until 5pm

Substance’ is an exciting curated event bringing together multiple artistic disciplines inviting visitors to participate in the process of making and telling 'stories'.

Substance’, is a one-day event exploring artist’s books as a multidisciplinary art form, presenting stories, poems and bold statements in an amazing array of forms from the page to performance, installation and sculpture.

Substance’ is proudly presented by David G Kirby in association with Aspex Portsmouth.

Substance’ is the first national Artist’s Book event to be held in Portsmouth and a first for Aspex.

Substance’ features established UK and international artists and students from a broad range of artistic disciplines; writing, poetry, illustration, printmaking, spoken word, performance, sound and sculpture.

Substance’ will showcase straightforward 'traditional' printed, bound book arts - handmade low tech 'zines, self publishing poets and writers; spoken word, sound and performance based artists; experimental, sculptural and site specific interactions designed to spark conversations and stories that both challenge and reinforce ideas of what constitutes a 'book'.

The Artist’s Book is a key medium for the exploration of form and function. Distilled down, one idea of a 'book' is a container, a vessel for storing - well, contents... in the hands of artists, the container has become as expressive and meaningful as its contents, creating an astonishing diversity of artefacts and expression – from the conventional, traditional and historical, to more experimental, imaginative and exploratory. The material form of the container has evolved from the tradition of spoken/cultural memory, to sheets of paper, to digital media, to esoteric 'cloud' storage.

The intention is for artists and visitors to engage and interact, to generate narratives through those conversations, and in the course of the event to see, and hear those dialogues transformed and re-presented. Visitors to the event will experience a few of the processes of how narratives and other content can be generated and contained, encapsulated in forms that can be taken away and relived elsewhere.


Event curator, Dave Kirby says “My aim with 'Substance' is to present a slice across the current genre of artists books; to focus on relationships between forms of content - archive/narrative and its [re]presentation/ retrieval. What comes first, the contents or the container? How does one even begin to make a 'book'?

Dave Kirby is a multidisciplinary artist from Southsea. He has been involved with artists books for more than 25 years. A seasoned exhibitor at artists book fairs and events, Dave’s work is held in national and international collections.

For further information please contact Dave Kirby, Portsmouth Artists Book Event artistbooksportsmouth@gmail.com // 

Aspex
Aspex recently retained Arts Council England, National Portfolio Organisation status enabling it to continue enriching Portsmouth and the surrounding area's cultural and creative environment. Aspex Visual Arts Trust is delighted that ACE continues to recognise the important work we do. 
Aspex has been supporting emerging artists, exposing the creative process, and engaging new audiences with visual art for 35 years.
Delivering an exciting and varied programme of exhibitions, off-site projects and participation events, the aim is to make the appreciation and creation of art a more inclusive activity.
Aspex has a track record of supporting sensational artists early in their careers. Artists such as Mona Hatoum, Richard Wilson and Susan Collis, all now internationally-acclaimed, received support from Aspex.
Key projects like EMERGENCY, an open submission biennial exhibition, put new work by new artists centre-stage.
Aspex participation programme, recognised by the arts industry as one of the best in the country, provides activities for everyone from toddlers through to pensioners. The work they do with children with Special Educational Needs and Autism has been described as exemplary.



Thursday 9 March 2017

SUBSTANCE - Portsmouth Artist Book Event 2018



Welcome to the home page for SUBSTANCE - Portsmouth Artist Book Event 2018


SUBSTANCE
 is the first full scale artists book event in Portsmouth where there is a long and glittering literary and cultural heritage, counting Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle among its alumni.

The event titled SUBSTANCE will take place in March 2018 and will showcase a diverse and challenging range of artists books, performances and related activities. The context for the show is the balance between form and content. Narrative and structure. Content is the common ground, the landscape, the soil, the substance on which we stand. Form is the manifestation of the diversity of our responses to that content.

Stand holders, independent artists book makers offer works for sale and display. Alongside this exhibition, the intention is to include a strong iteractive performance aspect to the event. Performances not simply restricted to one area, tied to a microphone and PA, but involving artists, poets moving among visitors and exhibitors, directly engaging with audience members, reciting and generating content for presentation before the end of the event in a programme of performance pieces. The aim is to generate an experience of the contrast between documentary artefacts and the ephemerality of performance.

SUBSTANCE offers a powerful sensory experience for the audience, and a great opportunity for visual artists to meet and connect directly with content providers, for authors and writers to see the tremendous possibilities of working with visual artists and creative talents from outside conventional avenues of self publishing, perhaps the foundations of some new and fruitful partnerships.


SUBSTANCE takes place at the prestigious Aspex Gallery at Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth on Sunday 18th of March 2018.  Bookmark this page, subscribe to the blog, follow the event on TwitterFacebook and Instagram.