ICAW Harlech Biennale Cyf

Harlech International Artists Residency 2007
11 days 24 July to 3 August 2007

Harlech Biennale Exhibition - on site exhibition
at Merthyr Farm LL46 2TR and Hendre Ddyfrgi LL46 2TR - 1 to 14 August 2007 - 14 August - 26 October active internet exhibition with real-time links to Toledo, Spain.

UNCOMMON GROUND - THE PROJECT

Proposal for 2007

Harlech Artists International Residency has invited artists from Israel, Spain, Argentina, Greece, England to make work in Harlech, alongside Artists from (IVAH Harlech Biennale), Wales as part of a ICAW’s European Artists partnership project with the Spanish artists’ group NEXO - Circulo de Arte de Toledo, and AP Ein Hod Israel.

An exhibition with ICAW Directors and NEXO in Neaudd Goffa, Harlech. With a proposal to link with real-time webcam with Circulo de Arte de Toledo as part of an ongoing exchange and link to regions in Europe.

Title: Uncommon Ground - reference to place.

Uncommon Ground - Focal Point

The project has a site-specific aim in as much as it brings artists who are normally studio based out into the landscape and environs of Harlech.
The challenge then is to make a piece of work suitable for exhibition with limited facilities and within the time constraints. Ideally, the work should explore the contextural relevance to place and to the exhibition title Uncommon Ground.

The thinking behind Geographical relevance: Reference to place is part of the ‘Uncommon Ground brief. Exploring ways of innovation and expression of visual and conceptual experiences that working in an unfamiliar environment opens up. Working outside the normal studio situation will create new possibilities for cultural synergies to form the content of the work.

The time-span of 10 days means that the work will be in an immediate response to the place, although some research will undoubtedly be done prior to working in Harlech. The UNCOMMON GROUND in this case would involve lines of conceptual thinking brought to the place of work as well as lines of experience gained from the place.

The point of the project is to avoid polarisation and unification and to seek responses from multi-disciplinary standpoints. The cultural differences give a dynamic to lines of thought as they meet in a coordinated exhibition of contrasting experiences.

The focus of the project is on invited artists from regions of Europe who have a variety of visual experiences . The residencies and the resultant exhibition of the work produced will be a celebration of differences, and a confirmation of our similarites.

The paradoxical notion of mutual dissemination and originality of work is the dynamic the project seeks to create in a multi-discipline activity with participating artists from, Israel, Spain, Greece, England and Wales.