Bella Kerr
I was a lecturer in art and design for 30 years, teaching at all levels from foundation to postgraduate, and Programme Director of the Foundation Art and Design course at Swansea School of Art from 2004 – 2016. Drawing underpins a visual practice spanning installation, small-scale making and film, shown in a range of contexts including London and regional galleries and museums. Recent personal work includes a residency in a house for homeless men, co-producing Everyone is an Artist, a programme about the history of community art for Radio 4, and a printmaking residency learning non-toxic, accessible techniques.
Caroline Humphreys
Illness and operations triggered a refocus for me and I met Bella and Amanda when I was studying on the Art Foundation course in Swansea. I went on to undertake an MA Social Sculpture and Connective Practice in Oxford Brookes, the final stages of which was curtailed through the re-emergence of health issues. My artistic practice is hybrid and can be writing, drawing and actions/installations. My interests increasingly lie in how we narrate and present history/histories (our own and more widely) and how personal/human experience is articulated through the processes of making/creating.
Amanda Roderick
I have extensive experience in the delivery of successful creative projects and working closely with artists. As Director of Mission Gallery, I developed an ambitious exhibition, residency and education programme, devising partnerships and nurturing collaborative practice. I currently work as an independent arts producer assisting artists and curators with projects and proposals. Specific focus has been directed towards supporting and promoting practitioners who have been underrepresented and also working alongside mature, experienced artists at a later stage of their careers, overseeing and creating their online and digital content.
Curators Statements
This project grew from conversations about the stories artists told when exhibiting in previous shows – ‘unwellness’ embedded in their making, as a force that both obstructs and permits. Devising exhibitions with Fringe Arts Bath over the last two years has also brought up the perennial question of what is ‘good art’. ‘Bad’ things often make ‘good’ art, such as photographs of war or the fury of protest. Is it the very ‘badness’ that makes them ‘good’- that provides authenticity, action in the moment or under stress, or revelation of ‘truths’ that are usually hidden? Where is the line? We have severed the head from the body, the well from the ill, set ‘good ‘against ‘bad’. Yet the presence of distress, treatment or pain, often accompanied by isolation, while debilitating, is also the source of energy, urgency and purpose in making for many.By putting equal emphasis on the physical and digital expressions of the exhibition we hope to acknowledge the difficulty some artists may have with delivering or installing work, and the reach that can be achieved beyond physical attendance.
Bella Kerr, June 2024
The idea for this exhibition arose from wide ranging and searching discussions between myself, Bella and Amanda, around how ‘unwellness’ affects body, mind and soul. Our conversations delved into the realms of ongoing illness, unliveable suffering, death and loss – which have irrevocably changed and tenderised us all to differing degrees through our varied experiences and subsequent and on-going exchanges.
In life being unwell can lead to a feeling of otherness, of feeling apart from or even cast out from. It necessitates a hitherto unanticipated challenge as to how one grapples with and negotiates a new interface within a fundamentally transformed landscape. As one of the changelings I can vouch for being altered in terms of physical energy, cerebral capacity and general appetite for outing myself and engaging in a world that sometimes seems to lack empathy. It becomes necessary to embrace and develop different patterns of being – both in life generally and in respect of creative activity.
So emerging from our discussions and looking more closely at the creative process we had many questions which formed our idea for Deserters. There’s often a debate about mainstreaming – how to make the ‘unwell’ fit in and join in and we wanted to consider the opposite of this position and see the work that would emerge from holding a space solely for those who have experience of desertion from ‘ordinary’ life. Our inquiry is to see what themes and focus might develop and to facilitate an opportunity for dialogue between artists and others both within and outside of the exhibition space. Ultimately what do artists who are unwell want to say about themselves to each other and their audience? Do they, and how do they wish to be heard and known? What methods are utilised to share the language of pain, distress and difference?
We know Deserters are not an homogenous group and it’s our belief that alongside core commonalities there exists a rich diversity to be explored. This ongoing, evolving project and its extended digital catalogue, are small contributions to a debate that we warmly invite others to join.
Caroline Humphreys, June 2024
