New Writing with New Contemporaries
To coincide with the 2019 annual exhibition, New Contemporaries is piloting an innovative two-phase programme: New Writing with New Contemporaries, developed in collaboration with Yorkshire-based artist Nick Thurston and art writing platform Corridor8. The programme forms part of New Contemporaries 70th anniversary celebrations with new innovative activity across the year.
From a shortlist generated by a prestigious group of nominators including Maria Fusco, Katrina Palmer, Bedwyr Williams and New Contemporaries alumni Harold Offeh and Heather Phillipson, six emerging artists from across the UK have been selected to participate in the programme.
The selected artists are: Jude Browning, Lucy Rose Cunningham, Freya Dooley, Malachy Harvey, Leo Hermitt and Ruby Lewis.
With writing central to the practice of each, the selected artists will receive mentoring sessions to develop new works which they will then showcase through public performances at New Contemporaries 2019 exhibition partner venues, Leeds Art Gallery and South London Gallery.
Literature, performance writing and spoken word are increasingly popular forms for contemporary art practice, yet are often challenging to showcase in exhibitions. This programme aims to develop a new model for supporting and publicly presenting experimental writing by talented emerging artists from across the UK.
New Writing with New Contemporaries has been generously supported by Leeds Inspired and delivered in partnership with Leeds Art Gallery, South London Gallery, Corridor8 and Nick Thurston.
The performances took place at Leeds Art Gallery on 9th November 2019 and South London Gallery on 25th January 2020, details here
Blog: Holly Grange, Corridor 8
Blog: Lara Eggleton, Corridor 8
Blog: Amelia Crouch, Corridor 8
Participating Artists’ Biographies
Jude Browning
b. 1987 Edinburgh, Scotland
2015 - ongoing PhD Fine Art Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh
2012 - 2014 MFA Art Writing Goldsmiths, London
2006 - 2010 Fine Art Painting and Printmaking Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow
Jude Browning is an artist and writer based in Glasgow whose work examines the voice and acts of writing and performance. As an artist she uses text to explore how writing may initiate the staged display of a figure to be observed.
Lucy Rose Cunningham
b. 1997 Chelmsford, England
2016 - 2019, BA Fine Art, University of Leeds, Leeds
Lucy Rose Cunningham employs the use of writing and audio-visual work to explore fleeting moments of sound and movement conveying love, loss and change.
https://cargocollective.com/lurose
Freya Dooley
b. 1989 Gloucestershire, England
2017 - 2018 Syllabus III
2008 - 2011 BA (Hons) Fine Art, Cardiff School of Art and Design
Freya Dooley works with writing, moving image, sound and performance. Her work combines literary and pop-culture references to create unstable narratives, soundtracks and semi-fictions.
Malachy Harvey
b. 1987 Belfast, Northern Ireland
2017- 2019 MFA The Ruskin School of Art, Oxford
2016 - 2017 Syllabus II
Malachy Harvey works with writing, moving-image and sculpture to stage artworks as sites of requisite tension between contradicting desires and emotional states.
Ruby Lewis
b. 1997, Walsall, England
2016 - 2019, BA, Fine Art with History of Art, University of Leeds School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, Leeds
Ruby Lewis is an artist whose practise examines the body as a site of cultural legacy. She is part of the poetry collective Context, which hosts spoken word events in Leeds.
Leo Hermitt
b. 1991, Manchester, England
2019 Graphic Design and Art Direction, MMU Manchester School of Art, Manchester
2015 - 2016 Art and Design, Leeds Beckett, Leeds
2010 - 2013 Graphic Arts & Design, Leeds Metropolitan, Leeds
Leo Hermitt is a Manchester based artist, designer, writer and poet. Leo explores storytelling, the idea of in-betweeness and marginalised experience, seeking to document, empower and liberate through interdisciplinary and socially engaged practices.
