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I'd Rather Be Shopping exhibition 18th Aug - October 2017 www.arebyte.com View T-shirt research. More info.
Responding to her fieldwork in the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, London, Louise translated slogan t-shirts into traditional signs which she painted by hand following a public workshop she co-led at Arebyte with sign painter Hannah Matthews. The signs transform the language of the fast fashion slogan t-shirts into the visual language of boat signage found on the neighbouring River Lea. The show also featured videos and a grime rap track made in collaboration with grime artist Maxsta. Scroll down to see the videos and hear the track. Louise also made a shopping centre based game offering strategies for retail subversion available free to exhibition visitors and handed out at the mall, and led retail therapy sessions and a public tour in the shopping centre.
Responding to her fieldwork in the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, London, Louise translated slogan t-shirts into traditional signs which she painted by hand following a public workshop she co-led at Arebyte with sign painter Hannah Matthews. The signs transform the language of the fast fashion slogan t-shirts into the visual language of boat signage found on the neighbouring River Lea. The show also featured videos and a grime rap track made in collaboration with grime artist Maxsta. Scroll down to see the videos and hear the track. Louise also made a shopping centre based game offering strategies for retail subversion available free to exhibition visitors and handed out at the mall, and led retail therapy sessions and a public tour in the shopping centre.
Signs, 2017. Workshop by the River Lea, translating slogans from T-shirts in a neighbouring shopping mall into traditional narrowboat sign-writing with the help of professional sign painter Hannah Matthews.
Video works made for the I'd Rather Be Shopping project:
Stream, 2017 - a conversation between the boats along to River Lea (next to the Westfield Stratford shopping centre) and the slogan T-shirts inside the shops there.
As part of I'd Rather Be Shopping Louise made a grime track in collaboration with acclaimed rapper Maxsta. Listen to it online here. Louise wrote the lyrics using words cut out of the Argos shopping catalogue during her off-site Arebyte Gallery residency at the Westfield mall in Stratford, the area where the grime music genre originated. Unlike some commercial rap, grime is often anarchic and political- more likely to question consumerism and power than glorify it. In this track, grime is used to reinterpret product descriptions to create a playfully subversive nonsense narrative. If you want an mp3 copy please email Louise.
SHOPPING & SUBVERSION talk at TEDx Hackney, May 2015.
Unlucky Dip, 2017. 3 day performance commissioned by Coastal Currents festival, Hastings. Spoof market research questionnaire during which train passengers are asked to feel objects inside a bag and then describe the body of the sea monster they can feel. The descriptions were then used as part of a 6 person musical performance overlooking the sea at St Leonards, with the aim of attracting sea monsters to the shore as a way of boosting tourism and protecting the town.
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ZONA MISTA. Bespoke Subutteo set for the football and politics themed exhibition at Westminster Waste in South Bermondsey. Prop for a Subutteo performance lecture. 5th May 2017. A publication was made to go with the performance.
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Why don't we live together? 2016-18.
While doing the housework with members of the public, we dream up imaginary plans to spend the our futures together. The title is taken from the lyrics of a Pet Shop Boys song. The first manifestations of this live experiment took place 22nd, 23rd and 30th January 2016 at 'Modern Mirror'- a group show at Bread & Jam, 52 Whitbread Rd, Brockley. The exhibition was held in a gutted, soon to be refurbished, Victorian terraced house. Visitors were invited to help me complete the household chores, lasting between 20 minutes and 2 hours- including dusting, sweeping, washing up, making tea, mopping and pairing socks. Since September 2016 I've launched the project as a bookable service. I go to people's own homes. To book a visit contact [email protected]. Lives planned include: co-parenting a child fathered by wrestler/actor The Rock; building a museum in the wilderness with a traveller who set the objects in my collection free; talking love, vulnerability and metamorposis with a singing priest; founding a walking society in Los Angeles while learning about the architectural uses of horse hair. The project is documented as an audio piece which mixes narratives to preserve anonymity of participants. |
'You know that bit there by the back of the ASDA' extract of a spoken word performance at Brunel House, Cardiff. 2016. Thanks to poet Lyndon Davies for providing the footage.
MARTIAN SHIPPING - at The Government Art Collection, London. 29th April 2016.
A new performance by British artist Louise Ashcroft in response to embassyHACK at the GAC gallery space, curated by Francesca Altamura, Tamar Clarke-Brown and Bar Yerushalmi.
"How did Martin Shipman get promoted to Editor of the World? Artist Louise Ashcroft charts Shipman's rise from redundant Canary Wharf software architect to CEO of Martian Shipping, the future's most influential corpo-nation. Talking us through the objects in his abandoned embassy, Ashcroft unravels the stories of the products and policies that made Shipman so influential in the years before he disappeared altogether."
A new performance by British artist Louise Ashcroft in response to embassyHACK at the GAC gallery space, curated by Francesca Altamura, Tamar Clarke-Brown and Bar Yerushalmi.
"How did Martin Shipman get promoted to Editor of the World? Artist Louise Ashcroft charts Shipman's rise from redundant Canary Wharf software architect to CEO of Martian Shipping, the future's most influential corpo-nation. Talking us through the objects in his abandoned embassy, Ashcroft unravels the stories of the products and policies that made Shipman so influential in the years before he disappeared altogether."
Martian Shipping from Louise Ashcroft on Vimeo.
Family Artist in Residence, Camden Arts Centre. 1st October 2016 - 8th January 2017.
In response to the current shows by Matt Mullican and Bonnie Camplin, as well as my own practice, I am leading weekly workshops for families in relation to themes of 'the unknown', the supernatural and imaginary societies. E.g. Monster Movies, Hypnosis Machines, Dinner Party for the Dead, The Game of Afterlife, DIY subculture, alter-ego costumes, and more. Through play and making, we explore complex themes.
In response to the current shows by Matt Mullican and Bonnie Camplin, as well as my own practice, I am leading weekly workshops for families in relation to themes of 'the unknown', the supernatural and imaginary societies. E.g. Monster Movies, Hypnosis Machines, Dinner Party for the Dead, The Game of Afterlife, DIY subculture, alter-ego costumes, and more. Through play and making, we explore complex themes.
Homeopathy is Just a Very Refined Form of Pollution - Installation with performances, at the Koppel Project 14th August - 5th September 2016. For more info on this work see here.
REMAKING THE INTERNET - A Project in Collaboration with the people of Exeter. Summer 2016.
Commissioned by Museum of Contemporary Commodities, co-hosted by Exeter Phoenix, Exeter Library and Devon Fab Lab; developed in partnership with Furtherfield. The ideas generated by the project were documented as a website.
Louise Ashcroft invites the people of Exeter to help her re-make the internet from scratch using low-value, analogue craft materials to create a messy pile of collective brain-clutter. Drop-in events open to all. Children must be supervised. Produced in partnership with Exeter Phoenix.
Commissioned by Museum of Contemporary Commodities, co-hosted by Exeter Phoenix, Exeter Library and Devon Fab Lab; developed in partnership with Furtherfield. The ideas generated by the project were documented as a website.
Louise Ashcroft invites the people of Exeter to help her re-make the internet from scratch using low-value, analogue craft materials to create a messy pile of collective brain-clutter. Drop-in events open to all. Children must be supervised. Produced in partnership with Exeter Phoenix.
Here are a few diagrams resulting from the project, to see more go to the Remaking the Internet website:
'C is for Character' (launched April 2016) is a conceptual resource I made for Tate Britain in collaboration with Schools and Teachers, Tate London Learning. To be used by schools groups and anyone who wants to go on holiday with that intriguing Pre-Raphaelite you've noticed hanging around. Get it here.
'C is for Character' (launched April 2016) is a conceptual resource I made for Tate Britain in collaboration with Schools and Teachers, Tate London Learning. To be used by schools groups and anyone who wants to go on holiday with that intriguing Pre-Raphaelite you've noticed hanging around. Get it here.
PROPS performance at Latitude Festival, Sunday night headline event, 21st July 2014. Your Culture Is Ailing Your Art Is Dead in the Literature tent, curated by comedian Robin Ince and artist Charlotte Young.
SUPERMARKET. Performed at Panacea exhibition 43 Inverness Street Gallery, November 2015. Reflections on feelings of disorientation and placelessness during my self-appointed residency in Tesco Extra.
SHORECORE, 2015. Collaboration with Fritha Jenkins for Art Licks Weekend.
Sculptural violin score. Two figures perform the River Thames, using fragments of the shore, a violin, an amp and a loop pedal.
Sculptural violin score. Two figures perform the River Thames, using fragments of the shore, a violin, an amp and a loop pedal.
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No MEAT in TEAM performance with participatory games, at Insufficient Void event curated by Marcus Orlandi, September 2015. AM London, Southwark. Props: Exotic vegetables, shoe laces, leggings selected by a stranger, muscle men magazine cut-outs, straws, squeaky pig toy, fast food drink, sticky fly-catching strips, tie in bag with receipt.
ANNUAL. Dec 2015. Performance at Cabaret Melancholique (extract below).
The performance took the form of a month by month review of Ashcroft's year; talking through the objects gathered from her studio (bedroom) floor. This extract shows her taping the audience together to get closer to a peculiar indescribable feeling she has experienced since childhood. Finally, a hybrid of 2 objects bought in Tottenham Hale Retail Park is made by removing the squeak from a pig-shaped dog toy and inserting it into the drinking straw of a fast food coca-cola cup, creating the sound of a pig drowning (in an attempt to understand capitalism).
The performance took the form of a month by month review of Ashcroft's year; talking through the objects gathered from her studio (bedroom) floor. This extract shows her taping the audience together to get closer to a peculiar indescribable feeling she has experienced since childhood. Finally, a hybrid of 2 objects bought in Tottenham Hale Retail Park is made by removing the squeak from a pig-shaped dog toy and inserting it into the drinking straw of a fast food coca-cola cup, creating the sound of a pig drowning (in an attempt to understand capitalism).
FEELING, 2015. I tell the audience a story about a strange indescribable feeling I get from time to time, which seems related to conjoined twins, or looking in the mirror while repeating your own name, or the moment you mistake someone else's limb for your own. My dad gets a similar feeling, but it's more like the feeling of bunking off school to run along the pier-head in the rain, or thinking about Barbara Hepworth sculptures while eating crisps. In an attempt to convey my mysterious feeling to the audience to stop me feeling so isolated, they are gaffa-taped together and asked to dance as one monstrous, leviathan body. A sound track is played, and the audience-monster dances to it wildly. It is a recording of me learning to to sing the word 'itching' using vocal extension technique, trained by Louise Ashcroft (an opera singer/actress who shares my name) who I invited to 'play my voice like an instrument'. Having been given a pile of my old scripts, Louise Ashcroft 2 selected the word 'itching', perhaps because it best described our feeling of collaborating with our namesakes. The track was recorded in Brixton market, which provides a cacophonous sonic backdrop of market stall music and chanted sales pitches. When bodies merge or confront formlessness it is itchy: flies biting; eggs being laid in your flesh; bacteria spreading.
My namesake Louise Ashcroft the opera singer and voice actress 'plays' my voice using vocal extension technique on a walk through Brixton. We learn to say the word itching, which is taken from one of my previous performance scripts.
Reading 'The Experimental Futurologists' at Tremulous, Asylum Chapel, Peckham. 5th June 2015.
AltMFA Feed. 2014. Leading a collaborative performance walk through Bermondsey for Art Licks Weekend.
Performing 'How to be useful / How to convince other people you are useful' at 'Prop and Proposition: The Body as Sculpture', Pitzhanger Manor 27th September 2014. A talk with props, about John Soane, collecting, cats, capitalism, genetics, marketing, clairvoyance and socks.
FEED, performed at Husk Gallery in Limehouse on 5th February 2015. Collaboration with Lily Johnson. Two figures with giant spoons (too long to reach their own mouths) are invited to feed one-another by a narrator who appears with shopping bags full of ingredients. The narrator discusses each product, which has been specially selected because of its cultural mythology - stories about: sauces and ideology, mortality and pickles, cycloptic energy drinks, civilisation and Smash, (Kinder) surprises.
A thought I had while standing on top on Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseille, January 2015.
OCHLOCRACY ORCHESTRA
RCM|RCA Collaboration 1. 17th November 2014. Royal College of Music. 'Ochlocracy Orchestra' performance work in collaboration with Fritha Jenkins and Alex Chalmers, using old reel to reel tape recorders, live and found sounds, actions, video and spoken word.
RCM|RCA Collaboration 1. 17th November 2014. Royal College of Music. 'Ochlocracy Orchestra' performance work in collaboration with Fritha Jenkins and Alex Chalmers, using old reel to reel tape recorders, live and found sounds, actions, video and spoken word.
SILICON FEN, at the opening of 'Art Language Location' in Cambridge. 15th October 2014. Photos by Josh Murfitt.
Other Objects performance as part of The Worm and Other Objects at The Function Room. 3rd October 2014.
AltMFA Feed - A live, physical search engine for Art Licks Weekend as part of alternative MA course AltMFA, 4th October 2014.
Creaky Off-Cuts of the Green One, 26th June 2014. I performed a one hour radio show, as part of 'ALL SILENT BUT FOR THE BROADCAST' curated by graduating students from Royal College of Art curating course: Anna Clifford, Miloslav Vorlicek, Angelica Sule, Dunya Kalantery and Katherine Finerty.
'On Reflection' performed at the opening of Floating Island Gallery, Harbour Exchange Square, South Quay, Canary Wharf. 18th May 2014.
'Arthur Cravan v Aleister Crowley' Louise Ashcroft's boxing and spoken word performance with video screening. Saturday 10th May at The Function Room as part of their exhibition by Alexander Brener and Barbara Schurz. Thanks to boxer Sylvie Imbert. (Image copyright The Function Room 2014.)
Performance at The Function Room, Somers Town. 9 April 2014. Louise Ashcroft | Lina Lapelyte | Nazim Ünal Yılmaz. Click image to view video of performance. (Above).
Comedy gig Your Culture Is Ailing Your Art Is Dead, curated by artist Charlotte Young and comedian Robin Ince. Islington, Northampton and Brighton, March 2014.
The Square Circle Performance at Lewisham Art House as part of 'Squaring the Circle', March 2014.
Beach Walk performance, Camberwell College of Art's 'Day in Margate', April 2014. Organised by Amelia Newton Whitelaw.
Performance at Navigate publication launch and performance party. Lucky Me project space, The Glass Factory, Hackney Wick, 6 December 2013.
Pieces of Eight, 2013. Kingsgate Gallery.
Scrimshanker, performed at Words to be Spoken Aloud, at Turner Contemporary, Margate. Curated by Ruth Beale and Nicole Bachmann. 8 - 11th March 2013.
Lichen 2015. Extract from a performance at a live art event on an organic farm in Sussex. Local lichen were illuminated while I read 'The Giant book of the Unknown' aloud backwards in the dark.
Website content is copyright of Louise Ashcroft 2018.
Website content is copyright of Louise Ashcroft 2018.