What is Open Space?
Open Space is a series of four temporary art projects, curated by Jane Watt, that are taking place in 2009. Artists Matt Cook, Gordon Flemons, Miranda Sharp, Damien Robinson & Stuart Bowditch, who are all either based in Essex, or who have a strong connection with Essex, have been appointed to make work in Harlow, Colchester and Basildon.
Open Space is part of Genius Loci, a major three year public art project developed and funded by Essex County Council, that involves fourteen art projects that develop notions of ‘spirit of place’ across the county. Commissions East is advisor and project manager of the Open Space programme.
Open Space provides an opportunity for the selected artists to present new processes and works of contemporary art to local audiences. These projects will encourage an immediacy in approach and production. They will attempt to test new ways of working and interacting with public space. Temporary public works are often, by their very nature, more open ended, not seeking to answer questions, but rather pose them. As the American art critic Patricia C. Phillips puts it: “The point is not just to produce another thing for people to admire, but to create an opportunity – a situation – that enables viewers to look back at the world with renewed perspectives and clear angles of vision.”
 |
