Woman Up! On Tour - Rogue Artists Studios -Laura Yuile & Anna FC Smith

08/11/23 • 57 min

In this episode we went to Rogue Artists Studios in Manchester and spoke to ecxeptional artists Laura Yuile and Anna FC Smith
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Laura’s multidisciplinary practice explores the entanglements between domestic and urban space through matters of community, sustainability, and obsolescence, and the effects of globalisation and technological development. She exhibits internationally and alongside gallery-based exhibitions and events, she has organised a number of projects that filter into the everyday, commercial spaces that her work is engaged with. These have included Comfort Zones - a series of symposia on the subject of comfort zones held in the showrooms of various IKEA stores through the UK and China and a bus tour to a landfill site for Global Shadow Local Mist (2014). ASSET ARREST is an ongoing project and podcast series that addresses issues of financialized housing and real estate and their impact upon communities.
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Anna explores social history, folk culture and ritual through historical and anthropological research. Creating sculpture, installation, performance, and group actions her works emerge as multi-dimensional symbolic collages spanning eras, and forms of material culture. Touching on politics and performative space, she examines power and community, juxtaposing the ‘low culture’ and irreverence of communal tradition with the pageantry and ceremony of governance. Seeking links contemporary society has to its predecessors, she sees history and ritual as means to interpret the present.

Previous Episode

Woman Up! On Tour - Manchester Art Gallery - Natasha Howes, Mary Griffiths and Susie MacMurray

Woman up! On Tour - Manchester Art Gallery

New Episode Alert! 🎧 We're thrilled to bring you an extraordinary peek into the art world of Manchester!

🗣️ Join us on this captivating podcast episode as we sit down with the remarkable senior curator Natasha Howes and sensational artists, Susie MacMurray and Mary Griffiths!

🗣️ Get ready to be immersed in their artistic journeys, creative visions, and the stories behind their awe-inspiring work. From the curator's curation process to the artists' inspirations, this episode is a treasure trove of art insights!

Natasha Howes is the senior curator of Manchester Art Gallery.

Mary Griffiths’ practice begins with drawing and the close observation of urban, rural and industrial ecologies and architectures. These rapid figurative drawings are developed in the studio in graphite, ink, monoprints, paint and digital media. Her works are held in public and private collections including Arts Council Collection, The Turnpike and The Whitworth. One of her work (Weather) is currently showing at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

An engagement with materials and with the body is at the heart of MacMurray’s practice. Her role is one of an alchemist: combining material, form and context in deceptively simple ways to stimulate both physical and cultural associations within those who encounter her work. Working in installation and sculpture she has gained a reputation for poetic site-specific interventions in historic spaces. Susie has an international exhibition profile, showing regularly in the USA and Europe as well as the UK.

Next Episode

Woman Up! On Tour - Lady Kitt at Newbridge Project, Newcastle

New episode of Woman Up! On Tour!

Recorded at the Newbridge project I. Newcastle we spoke with disabled artist and drag king, incredible Lasy Kitt

Kitt works on long term, collaborative

projects driven by insatiable curiosity about how art can be useful. Projects are usually punctuated by the creation of large-scale, vibrant installations / sites for exchange made from recycled paper,

reused plastics and raw clay, which Kitt calls shrines.

Kitt uses crafting, performance, joy and research to create objects, interactions and events, with the wild ambition of dismantling and mischievously re-crafting spaces and systems they find discriminatory, obsolete or just quite dull.

Kitt is a trustee for Crafts Council and founding member of disabled artist led art rabble “kin collective” (North East Culture Awards “Newcomer of the Year” winner 2022).

Kitt’s work has been longlisted for the 2023 Aesthetica Art Prize, shown at Atlanta Contemporary (USA), Saatchi Gallery (UK), National Centre on Restorative Justice (USA) and commissioned by Craftspace (“Drag Declares Emergency” 2022-23), Arts&Heritage (“This, our hive of voices” 2020-22) and BALTIC (‘Open. Bloom. Flourish. Nourish’, 2021).

Kitt is currently working with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art (UK), AXISWEB (UK) and Centre for Artistic Activism (USA) on “(en)SHRINE”, an ACE and AHRC funded project exploring collaborative making as a catalyst for organizational development.

Thank you @acegrams for making all this possible!