#4. The Archive
Down Stairs
Opens 28th January 2013, 6pm
With the recent shift to producing more media documentation than we can consume, why consciously begin an archive if it becomes un-navigable without constant administration and management? Archiving the archive is like a dog chasing it's tale: Goes fast, gets nowhere, feels dizzy.
The Archive, curated by Craig Barnes of artist-run project space Down Stairs, offers possible approaches that create a new body of reductive archive material. Rather than ponder how to archive media which grows at an exponential rate, The Archive seeks to document the now largely undocumented incidentals: the conversations that take place between people in person.
For The Archive Craig Barnes will construct a series of large carpeted sculptures on wheels, entitled 'Breakout zone', which will serve as the location for a series of small meetings, discussions and workshops within Meter Room. Over documentation of these events is to be avoided. Instead, minutes of pertinent details will be taken and circulated in good time. A digest if you like.
The series of meetings will be dealing with notions of coupling discipline with invention, storytelling, redundant skill sets, ways to increase the effectiveness of memory, delegation in collaborative practice, and the question: should everybody, regardless of profession, take part in a Monday meeting?
Opened in June 2011, Down Stairs is a 6,000 square foot artist-run gallery space located at Great Brampton House in Madley, Herefordshire. The gallery shows contemporary artists from a variety of backgrounds and across all media. It seeks to nurture young artists and support local artists, and is committed to showing emerging artists alongside established names in group and solo exhibitions. Down Stairs also offers an Artist Residency programme as part of its commitment to supporting artists. Down Stairs is programmed and run by artists Craig Barnes and Dmitri Galitzine, alongside gallery proprietor Martin Miller.
