Wild New Territories is an exhibition showing new visual art, media and performance works that explore the interplay between the urban and the wild. The artists are a broad cross-section of award winning and emerging, artists from a variety of geo-political backgrounds in an unusually natural setting: Camley Street Natural Park in the middle of Kings Cross. Inhabited by hundreds of diverse species, not normally found in the middle of a concrete metropolis, these wild species will be joined by established artists including Gillian Wearing, Michael Landy, Gordon Cheung, and American artist, Edgar Heap of Birds,working in a variety of challenging and site specific ways. This is a world touring exhibition premiering in London then moving to Vancouver, then Berlin.
The London exhibition will take place from September 19th 2012, running concurrently at two locations:
Camley Street Natural Park (until October 31, 2012 12 Camley Street, London, N1C 4PW. part of the London Wildlife Trust.
The Foundling Museum (until December 16, 2012), 40 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AZ
This project challenges some of the widespread assumptions that depict the wilderness as, somehow, disconnected from the cultivated, and 'humanity' as disconnected from 'Nature. Gillian Wearing is one of the artists exploring these colliding themes, whilst Michael Landy, shall exhibit his delicate etching of weeds or "street flowers: marvelous, optimistic things that you find in inner London." Max Kimber's work explores other unions of both the natural and unnatural through photography of animals that she has arranged in unusual, mystifying, maternal poses.
Gordon Cheung shall be showing a mix of paintings, sculpture, and video eluding to ecological and economic bubbles; The Four Riders, a 4 screen animation, and the collage series Tulipmania. In addition, Cheung shall also install a bull skull inside a bee hive in the form of an incubating conceptual intervention piece that will evolve throughout the length of the exhibition as the bees build their honeycomb around the scull.
Other interventionist sculpture is by Jamie Griffiths in collaboration with Diego Samper and Rob Schareinr with project 'LA WEFAN MANIGUA' an Interactive Video/Audio Sculpture projected on wool suspended from the trees in Camley Park.
Noting that species are disappearing at an unprecedented rate the exhibitions explores the vital, often intangible links between cultural and natural ecologies. Edgar Heap of Birds uses banners to question increasing and diminishing populations in different parts of the world whilst Henry/Bragg exhibit 'The Surrey Hills' a video about a landfill site, incongruously situated in one of the UK's 46 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and 'Blooming Britain'; a series of large-scale outdoor photographic prints depicting competitive amateur gardeners in post-industrial regions around the UK.
Responding directly to Camley Street's natural habitat Alma Tischler Wood's installations 'Bird Box' consists of 11 luxurious homes for homeless birds, made from materials from the skip of one of Britain's best-known art schools attached to selected trees throughout Camley Park. Vincent Trasov/ Michael Morris shall create numerous visual aids to draw attention and awareness to the role of color in the environment.
Kathy Kenny and Ron den Daas explore the intersection between city life and nature in a video piece 'Howe Street intersects Camley Street Park'. Dana Claxton's work looks at indigenous spirituality, femininity, and transformation through photography alongside Mars Kaliszewski who shows video 'Amazing Grace'depicting a celebration of life, death, and the beyond. In contrast Foreign Investment contemplates the speculative value of the sky above the area within half a mile radius of Kings Cross station and will create and sell shares in the sky above Kings Cross, St Pancras.
Co-Curator: Kathy Kenny holds a B.A. from the University of British Columbia, and an
M.A.from Middlesex University. Kathy has produced and edited numerous interactive, non-linear, and linear productions, to broadcast quality, using digital media. Productions include works by artists such as Jake & Dinos Chapman, Mark Wallinger, Gillian Wearing, and Sam Taylor Wood. Many of these works have been shown in major international art gallery's, as well as on BBC2 and Channel 4
Co-Curator: Ron den Daas studied visual art at York University and The Banff Centre in Canada before completing a degree in painting at the Accademia di Belli Arti in Rome. In 2012 he received funding from the Arts Office and Pacific Salmon Foundation in Canada. Ron's work is held in both permanent collections, and public installations, at York University, Toronto, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, and the City of North Vancouver, Canada.
