About the show
Home : Work is a series of 124 exhibitions staged in students apartments, dachas and gardens, that form the end of year exhibition for the 2019/2020 …
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Home : Work is a series of 124 exhibitions staged in students apartments, dachas and gardens, that form the end of year exhibition for the 2019/2020 cohort of Foundation students at BHSAD.
The current rules on social distancing mean that mass gatherings of people (usually the norm at exhibition private views) are not currently possible. Due to the quarantine regulations, the school has been closed since 17th March, this constitutes the whole period of the students Stage 3 Independent Project.
Home : Work is a response to the situation that we currently find ourselves in. It also draws on Moscow’s rich tradition of apartment exhibitions. The primary audience for each students apartment exhibition is those that they share their apartment / flat / house / dacha with; their immediate family, partner, or housemates. The exhibition foregrounds the domestic situations and everyday encounters that art student’s experience during their ordinary lives.
The history of contemporary art practice and exhibition making in the city of Moscow during the 1970’s and 1980’s (whilst still a part of the former Soviet Union), saw artists utilise their own apartments in order to generate a dialogue with a small, like minded audience, often other artists. These artists included the Moscow Conceptualists and the generation of artists that directly followed them, who became known as APTART. APTART was seen as a short-lived art movement, the collective project of which was a series of apartment exhibitions, along with exhibitions on non-urban public land and in dachas. These apartment shows were a response to the restrictions that existed at that time, when artists couldn’t officially show the work that they wanted to due to Government rules on freedom and the expression of individual positions.
We are currently living under a different set of restrictions. It seems appropriate that in these strange times, in a Russian art school were the language used to teach is English, that we should look at APTART as a model of practice:
“The name is a contraction of ‘apartment art’, as well as a play on the Russian APT, meaning ‘ART’ – ‘ARTART’, a kind of stutter, a repetition of ‘ART’ across Russian and English.”
David Morris, Anti-Shows, e-flux Journal #81 – April 2017.
This website collects together the 124 apartment exhibitions and allows a secondary (potentially international) audience to experience the final works and exhibitions made by the 2019/2020 cohort of Foundation students at BHSAD.
Foundation Diploma in Art & Design
The Independent Project
The Foundation course develops the student’s understanding of the world of art and design. Students examine where their strengths and interests lie through an engagement with practical projects, problem solving and critical thinking. The course is studied in three stages. It gradually moves from being predominately staff led during Stage 1, to a situation where students are able to develop projects wholly independently by Stage 3. This emphasis on developing independence is a vitally important preparation for degree level study.
This exhibition is the culmination of work produced for the Independent Project – the third and final stage of the Foundation course. Students are asked to carry out a project within their specialist pathway (Fine Art, Fashion and Textiles, 3D and Spatial Design or Communication Design) that encourages them to bring together the ideas and working methods that they have developed throughout Stages 1 and 2 of the programme. Students receive intensive critical feedback throughout this period through a series of critiques and tutorials that allow them to realise their ideas. This 10 week project is designed to help students refine their practical skills alongside their research, problem solving, planning, organisational and analytical skills, in order that they develop the independence required to successfully progress to specialist BA programmes.
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