Wysing Arts Centre: Open Call for Cally Spooner Study Week

OPEN CALL FOR APPLICATIONS STUDY WEEK LED BY CALLY SPOONER
14-17 MARCH 2016

This intensive Study Week will address new forms of management (of self and others), the internalisation of institutions, and the concept of the 'exhibitionary complex’. The Study Week will include contributions from invited speakers, and activities will be structured with a series of reading groups, film screenings and group practicalities.

The Practice of Theories is a group exhibition that launches Wysing’s programme for 2016, Wysing Poly. Wysing Poly aims to provide an environment where practice and theory come together to support the development of new work. The Practice of Theories brings together artists who seek to make visible the intangible and who share knowledge or complex theories through their work and working methods and includes new and existing work by Andrea Büttner, Ami Clarke, Andy Holden, David Osbaldeston, Yuri Pattison, Heather Phillipson, Takeshi Shiomitsu, Erica Scourti, Cally Spooner and David Toop.

As her contribution to the exhibition, Cally Spooner will lead a four-day Study Week called: 'Please remember when you get inside the gates you are part of the show.'[1]

“In tough times we are often told, "keep your head". If you're a good Manager, you may find you have become all head, less body. You’d think making art would put the brain back in the body, and the brain-body firmly on earth but not necessarily. In private enterprise we control what comes in and out extremely carefully. I have only recently learned the intimate is very different to the private. We use the same tools to have a good conversation as we do to make money; the micro is hosted in the macro, the intimate in the corporate, the body in the institution. This study week considers how a 'poetically processed subject' might never be produced from a mind-only rupture. Topics of study and activity include new management strategy, post-enlightenment doubt, embodied body-training, eating, institutional internalisation, complicity and walking. The four days will be structured with reading groups, film screenings and group practicalities, punctuated with invited speakers and walkers.”

[1] An instruction from a 'Short Sermon to Sightseers' at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, NY

Cally Spooner has developed a distinctive body of work consisting of media installations, essays, novels and live performances such as radio broadcasts, plays and a musical. Fluctuating between the intuitive and the bureaucratic, the unplanned and heavily managed, her work grapples with how indeterminacy, instincts, conviviality and less cogent time can be organised and arranged within the linguistic architectures of corporate, mediatised and institutional production.

Recent solo exhibitions include And You Were Wonderful, On Stage, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2015 & 2013); THE ANTI CLIMAX CLIMAX (2015), Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld), Post-production, Spike Island, Bristol (2015); On False Tears and Outsourcing (2015, Vleeshal, Middelburg) and Regardless, it’s still her voice..., gb agency, Paris (2014); He's in a Great Place!, BMW Live Performance Room, Tate Modern, London (2014); Performa 13, The National Academy, New York (2013) and Seven Thirty Till Eight, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2013). In 2013 Spooner received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award. Her novel Collapsing in Parts was published by Mousse in the same year. In April 2016, Spooner’s first large-scale US solo exhibition will take place at the New Museum, New York.

The retreat will take place from 14-17 MARCH 2016
The deadline for applications is 12 midnight, Monday 1 February 2016

HOW TO APPLY
We accept applications through our Wysing Submittable online webpage. Please visit wysingartscentre.submittable.com/submit to make an application. If you have any questions about the application process please contact Wysing at [email protected].
We ask you to answer the following questions and provide us with the information listed below, each as a separate document.

1. How is this Study Week and Cally Spooner’s work or working methods relevant to your practice at this time? (max 500 words)
2. What do you think you can bring to the Study Week and what would you want to get out of it? (max 250 words)

PLEASE ALSO PROVIDE:
A statement on your work (max 500 words)
A current CV
A selection of 6 images of your work (or other relevant material such as video, sound etc, or send a document with links to websites hosting material such as Vimeo or Youtube).

SELECTION PROCEDURE
Following submission the curatorial team at Wysing and Cally Spooner will select up to eight participants. Selection will be based on applications received following the Call for Participation and on the information provided as described in How to Apply. The Study Week is open to artists, writers, theorists and curators.

ACCOMMODATION
Wysing can provide accommodation in our farmhouse should you need it, at no charge. Some rooms are for multiple use. Facilities include shared bathrooms, a shared living room and kitchen. If you would prefer not to share the farmhouse then local accommodation is available online for you to book – hotels, B&Bs and AirBnB, etc.

FURTHER INFORMATION
The Study Week is free to participants. Cooking facilities and basic supplies will be provided. If you have any specific dietary requirements please come prepared with provisions or let us know in advance.

For any specific information please call 01954 718881 or email [email protected]