Spring/summer programme and 2018 Stanley Picker Fellowships in Art and Design open call

Stanley Picker Gallery is excited to announce its spring/summer programme including a solo exhibition by Stanley Picker Design Fellow Yuri Suzuki, Furniture Music, featuring events curated with Disegno; the launch of Offshore in Kingston, Cally Spooner’s Stanley Picker Fine Art Fellowship project; the first UK solo show by artist Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida; and "Cold Protein," a new podcast series.

Yuri Suzuki: Furniture Music
February 22–April 21, 2018
A culmination of his Stanley Picker Fellowship research, Yuri Suzuki’s exhibition Furniture Music explores a definition of sound design in our contemporary period and seeks to examine everyday soundscapes, which can greatly impact our environments. The title comes from French composer Eric Satie’s description of his own music as "a sound that should not be actively listened to, but present at the periphery of our daily lives." The exhibition is accompanied by a series of events curated with Disegno, in partnership with the Design Museum in London.

Cally Spooner: Offshore in Kingston
April 23–28, 2018
Cally Spooner presents the outcome of her Stanley Picker Fellowship—a company. Titled Offshore in Kingston, Spooner's research project has been probing connections between social, economic, biological and neuronal organisation, to come closer to staging a question: how to imagine new conditions and terms for a performing company, a corporate company or the company of others per se, in 2018? Together the company of dancers, artists, musicians, researchers and writers will explore how to maintain states of rehearsal and dis-synchronicity to work "Against the Performative"—that is those prompts and cliches aiming at quick delivery and maximum efficiency, if only to drain a sense of life, agency and responsibility.

Meriem Bennani: Siham & Hafida
May 16–July 14
For this show, Meriem Bennani presents a newly reconfigured version of the video installation Siham & Hafida (2017) originally commissioned by The Kitchen, New York City. The work offers an intimate view into the lives of two women whose intergenerational conflicts over the chikha tradition—part of the Aita music heritage—reflect greater shifts in Moroccan culture. Historically, chikha performers have provided entertainment for important celebrations and spread lyrics of resistance during the era of French colonization. Yet, tensions have arisen as performers negotiate a globalised society.

"Cold Protein"
From summer 2018
A new series of artist sound commissions released as podcasts, "Cold Protein" brings together the foundational principles of augmented reality with the digital medium of podcast radio. This first series is supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation as part of the Site Line digital commissioning programme with Stanley Picker Gallery. "Cold Protein" invites three artists to produce site-specific sound pieces for locations throughout the UK where a physical manifestation of their work may not be possible. In turn, audiences are invited to download the episodes and visit the relevant sites for the full experience of the work. "Cold Protein" is curated by Lucia Pietroiusti and Stella Bottai.

Call for applications: Stanley Picker Design & Fine Art Fellowships
At the heart of the Gallery’s activities, the Stanley Picker Fellowship programme supports contemporary practitioners, across art and design disciplines, to research and present a significant body of new work as part of the research culture at Kingston University London. The yearly open call for applications opens in May, please sign up to our newsletter to be kept up to date. Each Fellowship provides up to 12,000 GBP and valuable access to the extensive material workshops, technical resources and expertise within Kingston School of Art and the wider University, to support a practice-based research project that will result in an exhibition of international standing at the Stanley Picker Gallery.