THE PUBLIC VALUE OF THINGS ︎
PUBLIC DISCUSSION AND ARTIST TALK
2 Cygnet SQ, SE2 9EF
FREE / Drink and Food Available
THURSDAY 11 MAY / 19:00 -21:00
A public discussion between artists James Prevett, Amy Feneck and Ruth Beale (the Alternative School of Economics) exploring art, value and public(s) in the context of their individual and collective artistic work.
The talk marks the launch of James Prevett’s book Things for Homes / Homes for Things that culminates his 4-year project with TACO! in which he made sculptures for people in their homes. The book is available to buy at a special launch price of £15, or available in the TACO! shop.
At the heart of James Prevett's Things for Homes / Homes for Things are conversations about our social relationship to objects and the spatial relations these depend on. Prevett’s inquiry is intimate and gentle, occurring as it does on a domestic scale in the homes of people who don’t own art, and perhaps have never cared for it that much before. Without the expectations and politics that grand publicness entails, it embraces instead the potential for social connection through making and giving of sculpture to strangers.
Contributors include Annie May Demozay, Mat Jenner, Jennifer Powell, Vidha Saumya, Eetu Viren, Vilma Pimenoff, Henni Alava, Sven Claes, Deborah Frimpong, Michael Pleasance, Paul Seymour, Dani Tagen, Riordan Tyson, Karstein Volle, Leena Ylä-Lyly
Things for Homes / Homes for Things is co-published by TACO! and Rooftop Press, Helsinki
The publication of the book has been made possible by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, FRAME, Arts Council England, Peabody, Henry Moore Foundation, and the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland
James Prevett makes objects, text, images and video often combining them together as sculpture. His work deals with the vitality of things – images, ideas, memories, objects – and the way the sculptural is experienced and understood. Sometimes uncomfortable and sometimes humorous, James makes nuanced and highly crafted work that resists simple thematic readings. James has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally including Finland, Thailand, Singapore, USA, Austria and Brazil. He represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2006. His project Parties for Public Sculpture (2017- Ongoing ) invites artists to make a ‘party’ for an existing public sculpture. In 2021 he was awarded The Lineman Prize, by the Olga and Vilho Linnamo Foundation. James lives and works in Helsinki, Finland where he is currently Lecturer in Sculpture at Helsinki Fine Arts Academy.
The Alternative School of Economics is a collaboration between artists Ruth Beale and Amy Feneck, formed in 2012. They make art that questions economic doctrine and knowledge hierarchies. Working and collaborating with communities, they explore global political issues in relation to the complexity of lived experience. Using feminist and alternative economics and pedagogies as forms of resistance, they produce film, graphics, photography, texts and clothing, as forms of activation, dissemination and reflection, shared to publics in art and non-art contexts. Recent projects include Artists’ Economies, UKS, Oslo, The End of the Present, Arts Catalyst, London & Sheffield, and True Currency: About Feminist Economics, Gasworks, London.
Current projects include Tree Time, a new commission with TACO! London, and their on-going project Rabbits Road Institute Library, they are also producing a new installation about the neoliberal imagination, developed with Decentralising Political Economies (The Whitworth, Manchester, Liverpool John Moores University, The Association of Arte Útil), for Economics the Blockbuster: It’s not business as usual at The Whitworth, Manchester, in summer 2023.
The talk marks the launch of James Prevett’s book Things for Homes / Homes for Things that culminates his 4-year project with TACO! in which he made sculptures for people in their homes. The book is available to buy at a special launch price of £15, or available in the TACO! shop.
At the heart of James Prevett's Things for Homes / Homes for Things are conversations about our social relationship to objects and the spatial relations these depend on. Prevett’s inquiry is intimate and gentle, occurring as it does on a domestic scale in the homes of people who don’t own art, and perhaps have never cared for it that much before. Without the expectations and politics that grand publicness entails, it embraces instead the potential for social connection through making and giving of sculpture to strangers.
Contributors include Annie May Demozay, Mat Jenner, Jennifer Powell, Vidha Saumya, Eetu Viren, Vilma Pimenoff, Henni Alava, Sven Claes, Deborah Frimpong, Michael Pleasance, Paul Seymour, Dani Tagen, Riordan Tyson, Karstein Volle, Leena Ylä-Lyly
Things for Homes / Homes for Things is co-published by TACO! and Rooftop Press, Helsinki
The publication of the book has been made possible by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, FRAME, Arts Council England, Peabody, Henry Moore Foundation, and the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland
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James Prevett makes objects, text, images and video often combining them together as sculpture. His work deals with the vitality of things – images, ideas, memories, objects – and the way the sculptural is experienced and understood. Sometimes uncomfortable and sometimes humorous, James makes nuanced and highly crafted work that resists simple thematic readings. James has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally including Finland, Thailand, Singapore, USA, Austria and Brazil. He represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2006. His project Parties for Public Sculpture (2017- Ongoing ) invites artists to make a ‘party’ for an existing public sculpture. In 2021 he was awarded The Lineman Prize, by the Olga and Vilho Linnamo Foundation. James lives and works in Helsinki, Finland where he is currently Lecturer in Sculpture at Helsinki Fine Arts Academy.
The Alternative School of Economics is a collaboration between artists Ruth Beale and Amy Feneck, formed in 2012. They make art that questions economic doctrine and knowledge hierarchies. Working and collaborating with communities, they explore global political issues in relation to the complexity of lived experience. Using feminist and alternative economics and pedagogies as forms of resistance, they produce film, graphics, photography, texts and clothing, as forms of activation, dissemination and reflection, shared to publics in art and non-art contexts. Recent projects include Artists’ Economies, UKS, Oslo, The End of the Present, Arts Catalyst, London & Sheffield, and True Currency: About Feminist Economics, Gasworks, London.
Current projects include Tree Time, a new commission with TACO! London, and their on-going project Rabbits Road Institute Library, they are also producing a new installation about the neoliberal imagination, developed with Decentralising Political Economies (The Whitworth, Manchester, Liverpool John Moores University, The Association of Arte Útil), for Economics the Blockbuster: It’s not business as usual at The Whitworth, Manchester, in summer 2023.