SNYTHESIS OF THE STATE
PROJECT WITH BA FINE ART 2ND YEAR STUDENTS FROM NEWCASTLE COLLEGE, NewBridge Project
21ST - 30TH aPRIL 2023
Photo credit: Euan Lynn
We worked with BA Fine Art students at Newcastle College to produce this exhibition at The NewBridge Project
BRIEF:
Think about the spaces where people meet. Where do you go to meet your friends and
family? What do these spaces feel like and why do you think they’re like that? Think about
the spaces in walking distance of your home, or the ones you travel especially to. Space is
inherently political, people make specific decisions based on different factors to build in
deliberate places. Graffiti exists in certain areas but is cleaned or painted over in others.
Companies pick locations to target for adverts and billboards. Nothing happens by chance,
we live in the world we create. We even occupy public space in the form of protests and
pickets in order to challenge these decisions.
We’d like you to choose a place and make a piece of work considering the politics of
that space, you could highlight an issue or challenge it. This is a good chance to try
something new - try a new process or material. We’d like to see an exhibition with a wide
range of mediums and taking an experimental approach to material is encouraged. We’d still
love you to produce work that feels like your own. If this isn’t a theme you’ve made work
about before, don’t worry. Start by researching. Spend a day in the library. Look at other
artists’ work. Digging deeper into an issue will lead you to interesting places! Failure is
part of the process. Learning what you don’t like is maybe even more important than learning
what you do.
Some of the questions you might consider are:
Who gets to use/occupy public space?
Who owns it?
Who controls it?
What is it used for?
Have they changed over time?
How can you change it?
Is the space you think is public actually private?
Some of the points you might consider are:
- town squares
- graffiti
- billboards
- housing
- protests
- public transport
- right to roam
- digital space
- public buildings
- planning permission
- roads and dams
- parks
- pollution of rivers, beaches and seas
BRIEF:
Think about the spaces where people meet. Where do you go to meet your friends and
family? What do these spaces feel like and why do you think they’re like that? Think about
the spaces in walking distance of your home, or the ones you travel especially to. Space is
inherently political, people make specific decisions based on different factors to build in
deliberate places. Graffiti exists in certain areas but is cleaned or painted over in others.
Companies pick locations to target for adverts and billboards. Nothing happens by chance,
we live in the world we create. We even occupy public space in the form of protests and
pickets in order to challenge these decisions.
We’d like you to choose a place and make a piece of work considering the politics of
that space, you could highlight an issue or challenge it. This is a good chance to try
something new - try a new process or material. We’d like to see an exhibition with a wide
range of mediums and taking an experimental approach to material is encouraged. We’d still
love you to produce work that feels like your own. If this isn’t a theme you’ve made work
about before, don’t worry. Start by researching. Spend a day in the library. Look at other
artists’ work. Digging deeper into an issue will lead you to interesting places! Failure is
part of the process. Learning what you don’t like is maybe even more important than learning
what you do.
Some of the questions you might consider are:
Who gets to use/occupy public space?
Who owns it?
Who controls it?
What is it used for?
Have they changed over time?
How can you change it?
Is the space you think is public actually private?
Some of the points you might consider are:
- town squares
- graffiti
- billboards
- housing
- protests
- public transport
- right to roam
- digital space
- public buildings
- planning permission
- roads and dams
- parks
- pollution of rivers, beaches and seas