CAMP at MakeTank

As part of Antibodies, MakeTank has offered CAMP, the Plymouth-based artists’ network for Devon and Cornwall, use of its gallery and performance spaces in Exeter city centre.

Curator

The main interest of Liza Zellig as a curator is to support, facilitate and encourage creativity within the local artistic and urban communities, outside the hierarchy of the capital-driven art world. Amongst her previous projects is the creation of Lightbox, the student led art production society. Additionally, Liza has undertaken multiple internships at international contemporary art galleries, including at pop/off/art, Moscow, and most recently, at KARST in Plymouth, as part of the Curation MA.

Artists

Rhys Morgan

Olya Petrakova

Bryan Brown

Katy Richardson

Andrew Fentham

Liam Jolly

Chris Drake

Laura Hopes

Following an open call, organised by Liza Zellig, seven art projects will be presented, including works by Rhys Morgan, Katy Richardson, Laura Hopes, Chris Drake, Andrew Fentham, Liam Jolly and a Group Art Project led by Olya Petrakova and Bryan Brown. MakeTank is a “cultural lab for social change” and home to the MA Curation’s studio on the top floor.

Rhys Morgan, Interior: Off Straight Street, 2019-2020

Rhys Morgan is an artist and producer based in Plymouth, UK. Made in Bristol in 2019-20, ‘Interior: Off Straight Street’ is a refl ection on queer existence and the closure of queer spaces which was intensifi ed through the height of the pandemic, drawing on personal experiences to create a text work which is set against images captured during daily life. Morgan explores the relationship between the everydayness of queer experience and its proximity to deindustrialised spaces, refl ecting on this urban heritage and how it operates in relation to the often developer-driven, regeneration of city spaces, as well as a continuing decline in the number of queer spaces in recent years.

Group Art Project led by Olya Petrakova and Bryan Brown, Out of a house walked a plant, 2021

A mixed media performance and installation piece that questions the ethics and the consequences of exploiting plants as ‘antibody factories’. This work is supported by Hutch House Plants and MakeTank.

Katy Richardson, SRB, 2020

Katy Richardson is an artist, arts worker and educator based in Plymouth, UK. Her moving image, installation and sound works draw on research into trauma, haunting, memory and mental health. This piece refl ects on the artist’s personal experience of undergoing psychotherapy throughout the lockdowns, while sharing her experience of Soothing Rhythm Breathing techniques with the audience.

Andrew Fentham, Arse Poetica, 2020

Andrew Fentham is a writer and artist based in Penryn, Cornwall. His piece Arse Poetica responds to the language of the Covid-19 pandemic, while targeting new phrases and coinages, taking toilet paper as their page to question the new language in light of panic buying and hoarding activity.

Liam Jolly, A I R (Shit Trainers), 2021

A multidisciplinary artist and musician based in Redruth, Cornwall, Liam Jolly’s practice questions the notion of “Art” and what defi nes it as such, by creating a space for ideological exchange between the audience and the artwork. An assemblage of ideas, memories and anecdotes collide in A I R (Shit Trainers) to create a work that presents various versions of itself via a poem, a fi lm work and a small work on canvas.

Chris Drake, The Year I went from Drowning to Dancing in 4 pictures, 2020

A Plymouth based digital artist working in the online and physical realms, influenced by the Pop Art practice of the 1960s, Chris Drake’s piece depicts a journey from ‘Drowning’ in the early days of lockdown to ‘Dancing’ by the time freedom came around, while demonstrating the ways in which contemporary art adapted to the environment of 2020 through online exhibitions, representing the sombre and sanguine aspects of lockdown.

Laura Hopes, Theatre of Ruins: Bodies at Antibodies, 2017-2021

Created in collaboration with Maud Hendricks and Bernie O’Reilly of Outlandish Theatre Platform, Laura Hope’s piece has been developing and evolving since 2017. ‘Theatre of Ruins’ performs the ‘ruins’, while exploring the term: the past, present, viable and anticipatory ruin. In addition to these architectural interpretations of the ruin, the artists explored the political and social idea of the body as a site of ruination, of promise and regeneration.