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Keith Harrison’s new commission, Fountain | 1937, invites visitors to explore a striking reinterpretation of the Black Country pithead baths – public washrooms once used by miners at the end of their shifts. This large-scale installation offers a tribute to the working-class communities whose labour in the 200+ coal mines owned by the Earls of Dudley underpinned the wealth and grandeur of the Witley Court estate during the 19th century.

The work features a full-scale washroom structure and a row of miners’ lockers, accompanied by a commissioned soundtrack created in collaboration with Preston Field Audio. This audio piece blends contemporary field recordings of Witley Court’s plunge pool with industrial sounds from the Round Oak Steelworks, a site once owned by the Earl of Dudley. Through these elements, Fountain | 1937 juxtaposes the daily realities of industrial workers with the opulence enjoyed by the estate’s former residents.

A series of brightly coloured floats are installed on the side of the Pavilion and will be placed on the Front Pool at Witley Court later this year. Inspired by the shapes of early 20th-century steel products and the colouring of traditional coarse fishing floats, this sculptural intervention references both the industrial output of the Round Oak Steelworks and the leisure activities of local mining communities.

Live celebration events are set for the evening of Friday 12 September and sunrise on Saturday 13 September, aligning with traditional timings of fishing contests. The events will involve readings and sound works at the Pavilion on Friday. On Saturday, a procession of the floats will move through the grounds before being ceremoniously set adrift. Details and ticket links to follow.

Keith Harrison says:
“Fountain | 1937 started from a personal connection to Witley Court & Gardens through memories of fishing in the area with the Golden Throstle Angling Club. The club was based in a nightclub in a former pithead baths built in 1937, next to a brick factory on the edge of West Bromwich. Referencing clay, coal and steel, fire and water, the work makes some noise on behalf of those from the Black Country whose voices have not been heard.”

For more information about the work, click here.

 

Photo credit: English Heritage Witley Court and Gardens Worcestershire Art installation by Jim Holden

We are pleased to announce that three new studio holders have joined KARST’s community. KARST welcomes Patrycja Loranc and Sam Johnson (Seaing/Hereing), and Cylena Simonds.

Seaing/Hereing is an experimental film/sound duo driven by neurodivergent experiences of heightened and altered audiovisual perception. Their practice incorporates expanded cinema performances and multidisciplinary installations. Through flicker and psychedelic film, surrealist poetry, modified field recordings and music, the duo rediscovers sensory connections and relationships to nature, objects, and spaces.

       

Patrycja and Sam say:“We’re really excited to be joining KARST’s vibrant community of artists! Having a studio will allow us to expand our practice, networks, and opportunities for collaboration in the city as we’re embracing a new direction in our work as a duo.”

The everyday realities of belonging and un-belonging are seeded throughout Cylena Simonds’ creative practice. Through their work they explore how objects hold and transmit narratives and how folktales and urban myths provide tools for navigating adversity. Cylena’s processes interweave materiality and familiar stories, grounded in the lived experiences of racialized and gendered subjectivities.

     

Cylena says: “I look forward to joining KARST’s community of studio holders as we develop our practice.”

Over the past year we have been working with local design agency, Intercity, on an update to our visual identity. We now have a fresh look that reflects our identity as a space for dynamism, openness and experimentation, whilst retaining our familiar stripped back yet playful style.

KARST’s unique architectural features and surrounding South Devon landscape have inspired many elements of our refreshed branding – from the grid style layout of our posters, based on the gallery’s 42 columns, to our new environmentally inspired colour palette featuring a moss green and clay red.

You may have noticed that our logo has been redrawn and our website has had an update. Over the coming months you will also start to see these new designs being applied across our social media and throughout our venue signage. Find out more.

 

In July 2024 a studio will become available on a short-term basis.  KARST is inviting applications from artists interested in joining KARST’s community. Applications are judged on individual artist’s needs and scope for progression.  Priority is given to artists who are able to evidence a sustained practice and potential for further development within their work.

 

Studio Facilities & Membership:

• 24 hour access
• Limited number of allocated parking spaces
• Full alarm and CCTV system
• Kitchen facilities
• Communal social area 
• Meeting / conference room
• Access to technical equipment 
• Access to a loading bay within studio space
• Artist links on KARST website & social media
• Opportunities for studio visits / critique with art professionals 

 

Studio currently available:

• Studio 2: 4×4.5m at £250 pcm / £600 for 3 months
• Natural light
• Immediate transport access – electronic roller shutter

 

Costs all inclusive of: 

• VAT & business rates
• WIFI 
• Utility bills including waste disposal, electricity, water

 

Selection Criteria

Spaces are reviewed and assessed by a selection panel of KARST staff.

 

Access

Studio entrance includes a set of 4 stairs. Once inside the building, KARST is on one level with accessible facilities. Accessible entrance to the building is via the gallery entrance which includes a wheelchair platform lift. This point of entry is limited to public opening hours and by appointment.

 

Applicants are considered on the basis of:

• An active and critically engaged contemporary fine art practice
• The clarity of direction of their work
• Already established networks within and beyond Plymouth
• Evidently exhibiting work on a regional, national or international level
• Willingness to proactively participate in regular studio meetings and peer sessions 
• A commitment of at least 15 hours per week to on site studio practice
• The current community of studio artists and their practices 
• Progression since graduation.  New applicants within higher education are not eligible to apply, with the exception of research-based PhD practice.

 

Key Dates

• Ongoing deadline 
• Tenancy available from 1 July 2024
• Tenancy end 30 September 2024

Successful applicants will be invited for an informal discussion about studio provision prior to a final offer of tenancy. 

 

Application Form

All applications must include a completed application form which includes supporting information, such as images, relevant links, artist CV and appropriate references based on the selection criteria. Please send applications to studio@karst.org.uk.  All applicants are encouraged to visit our website or arrange a meeting with staff or residents before applying to find out the suitability of the studio in relation to their practice. 

Last month, we had the opportunity to work with students from St Andrews Primary School as part of our exhibition Against Apartheid. The students were given a tour of both the gallery and an artist’s studio. This was followed by two workshop sessions, led by KARST studio holder Anna Boland, in which the students explored their unique individual responses to the work on show through clay sculpture and large-scale printmaking. The resulting work was used to form an exhibition in KARST’s Fenster space, curated by the students, which they had the opportunity to share with family and friends as part of a private view. 

                     

Despite attending schools in close proximity to KARST, many local students have never visited the gallery. This project was an opportunity for the children to experience contemporary art and get an insight into the life of an artist, whilst testing out new materials and exploring their individual creative ideas. Here are some quotes from the students on their experience visiting KARST and taking part in the project:

I am proud that my work is able to be in the gallery.

I loved it when you taught us the pinch pot technique because now when I do my air dried clay I tend to use that one the most.

I really want to bring my family to the gallery

I loved every single bit of art and video (featured in Against Apartheid) and making things out of clay

                     

This project was in partnership with Millfields inspired. 

SATURDAY 25 – SUNDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2023

Black Atlantic is a weekend of public programming where participants are invited to consider how far racial equity and inclusion can serve as creative tactics for the imagination of just and sustainable planetary futures here and now. The weekend will be a celebration of such tactics in all their diversity and will combine a free event as well as this ticketed programme at The Market Hall.

On 25 November the day will begin at 11am at KARST, with a workshop by educator Tanisha Hicks-Beresford on joy as a decolonial strategy. This will be followed by conversations with artists Sylvie Sema Glissant and Angela Camacho with podcaster Jelena Sofronijevic (Empirelines) about their contributions to Against Apartheid.

The programme then moves to the Market Hall starting with Musical Passage, a free open jam session led by jazz educators Tomorrow’s Warriors and involving young people from across Devon and Cornwall.

The ticketed programme commences at 5pm with a keynote presentation by Francoise Verges marking the 30th anniversary of Paul Gilroy’s seminal book The Black Atlantic; songs performed by singer Angeline Morrison reflecting the Black British presence in English folk music over centuries; an in-conversation with renowned decolonial theorist Paul Gilroy and podcaster Jelena Sofronijevic (Empirelines); and DJ Yoda’s 50 years of Hip-Hop set.

Planetary Imagination, an installation by Ashish Ghadiali originally commissioned by The Box, will play on a loop inside the Market Hall’s immersive dome throughout the evening.

Throughout the day, food from the team at Jabulani will be on sale and available at KARST from 12-2pm and then at The Market Hall from 5pm.

On Sunday 26 November the morning will begin with a Deep Listening workshop by Ximena Alarcon from The Center for Deep Listening at 10am at the Mayflower Steps. Participants will then take part in A Silent Walk following a route designed by members of the Open City Night school and ending at the Peace Garden on Plymouth Hoe, where the weekend’s proceedings will be drawn to a close around midday.

Black Atlantic is part of Open City, a season of decolonial art and public programming organised by Radical Ecology through autumn 2023 with partners across South-West England and in the context of the exhibition Against Apartheid at KARST.

 

To book for the Saturday evening at the Market Hall in Devonport, click here.

This autumn, Radical Ecology, KARST and other partners present the Open City season of decolonial art and public programming. 

Open City invites artists, activists and thinkers from across south-west England to listen, walk and dream together as we explore the essential role of inclusive civic spaces in creating just and sustainable planetary futures. 

Centred around our upcoming group exhibition, Against Apartheid (28 September – 2 December 2023), the season brings together interconnected issues including histories and legacies of the plantation, contemporary contexts of forced migration and climate breakdown. Programmed events include talks and public lectures by speakers including artist Annalee Davis, writer Gary Younge, climate scientist Tim Lenton and activist Françoise Vergès. 

The role of music and deep listening – being genuinely curious about someone else’s story – as tools for facilitating a collective transformation. Interventions delivered in collaboration with the Centre for Deep Listening draw on legacies of artist and researcher Pauline Oliveros, as well as new iterations of an ongoing programme for jazz education across Devon and Cornwall, Musical Passage. Live performances by spoken word artist Otis Mensah and folk singer Angeline Morrison form part of the Black Atlantic symposium – a public celebration of the 30th anniversary of Paul Gilroy’s seminal decolonial text, The Black Atlantic (25 & 26 November 2023). 

At KARST, Wednesday nights throughout October and November will be the site of an Open City Night School. Eight community leaders will bring together perspectives on Plymouth from across refugee and asylum seeker communities, school teachers, third sector workers and the armed forces, developing methods for seeing the city through the eyes of another. This learning will inform the collaborative development of A Silent Walk. The walk through Plymouth will take place on 26 November 2023, ending with a shared breakfast on Plymouth Hoe and reflections on how we might harvest these public processes to imagine new and practicable frameworks for environmental justice. 

Open City is presented by Radical Ecology in partnership with KARST, The Box, Choose Love, Real Ideas Organisation, Devon and Cornwall Refugee Support, Diversity Business Incubator, Jabulani, Plymouth Culture, The Arts Institute at the University of Plymouth, Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, Arts and Culture at the University of Exeter, UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the study of Racism and Racialisation, The Center for Deep Listening at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Asone Music Hub, Plymouth Music Hub, Devon and Torbay Music Hubs, Torbay Community Development Trust, the Apricot Centre and Zebra Collective.

 

Key Dates:

28 September, 4.45pm-5.45pm – Keynote Lecture: Annalee Davis, Lecture Theatre 1, Roland Levinsky Building at University of Plymouth. BOOK HERE.

28 September, 6-8pm – Against Apartheid exhibition opening at KARST

28 September, 7.30pm-8pm – Artist Panel: Annalee Davis, Iman Datoo, Kedisha Coakley and Ashanti Hare in conversation at KARST. (FULLY BOOKED)

29 September-2 December – Against Apartheid exhibition at KARST

4 October, 6-8pm – Open City Night School: Trauma Geographies with Dr. Sana Murrani at KARST. BOOK HERE

11 October, 6-8pm – Open City Night School: Deep Listening Workshop with Ximena Alarcón Díaz at KARST. BOOK HERE

18 October, 6-8pm – Open City Night School at KARST

1 November, 6-8pm – Open City Night School at KARST

2 November, 8pm – Gary Younge: Dispatches from the Diaspora presented by Zebra Collective at Barbican Theatre

4 November, 2-4pm – Musical Passage: Workshop and Jam Session at The Exchange, Penzance

15 November, 6-8pm – Open City Night School at KARST

22 November, 6-8pm – Open City Night School at KARST

25-6 November – Black Atlantic Symposium at KARST and The Market Hall, Devonport

26 November – A Silent Walk, Plymouth 

29 November – Open City Night School at KARST

Introducing Fenster – a dynamic new space at KARST that we invite artists, curators and students to activate. The flexible nature of the space encourages versatility, creating the conditions for a multitude of uses, including learning, experimenting and connecting. 

How are we using the space?

Fenster was created as a space for KARST studio holders to test their work and over the last year it has held talks, test spaces, workshops and artists crits. Last month, KARST studio holder Paul Hillon used Fenster as a test space for his large scale light sculptures. 

The space was utilised for our Artists in Schools collaboration with The Box – allowing us to run workshops with local primary schools and provide children with the space to curate and present their work to family and peers. Fenster provided a gallery-adjacent setting for Hardeep Pandhal to give an intimate artist’s talk about his work in British Art Show 9. Studio holders and artists based in the region also used Fenster to present their work during crits with British Art Show 9 artist Abigail Reynolds.

So why did we call the space Fenster? 

Following the geological connotations of ‘KARST’, Fenster is named after the subterranean hollow created when a surface collapses to reveal what was previously out of sight. Translating to ‘window’ in German, Fenster also gives a perspective into the inner workings of the organisation and associated artists. 

Images:

1.  Studio holder Paul Hillon tests his large-scale light sculptures.

2. British Art Show 9 Artist Abigail Reynolds leading a one-to-one crit with studio holder Dave Beech.

3. KARST Head of Programme Ben Borthwick introducing Hardeep Pandhal. Photo: Dom Moore.

4. Artists in Schools workshop. Photo: Dom Moore.

5. Paintings produced by students as part of the Artists in Schools. Photo: Dom Moore.

SPY-nul is an exhibition at Studio KIND. by KARST studio holder Anna Boland. The exhibition combines large-scale sculptures and projected media to create an immersive environment exploring the internal world. Bringing together research on biological forms, the air we breathe and Plato’s writing on the structure of elements, Anna embraces a fascination with the things we cannot see.

Anna Boland is an interdisciplinary artist based in the South West. Drawing on dystopian fiction, notions of invisible environments and worlds, and post-pandemic existence, her current work uses everyday air packaging as a material to create large-scale sculptural works.

During the pandemic Anna began to collect air packaging. She became fascinated by the properties of this everyday material; where this sealed air might have come from; was it clean air, COVID air? The nature of the sealed packaging brought up ideas of confinement and our own bubbles, what we breathe into our bodies, and what happens to this air. To find out more about Anna’s work, click here.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a pop-up light art event in Barnstaple on the evening of Thursday 30 March, funded by the North Devon District Council as part of their Sparks funding programme.

The private view at Studio KIND. will be on Friday 24 March (5.30pm – 7.30pm) and the exhibition will be on view until Saturday 15 April (Wed-Sat, 12.30pm-5.30pm). Click here to find out more.

KARST x KIND is an ongoing collaboration linking artists and organisations in North and South Devon. SPY-nul is the second annual exhibition at Studio KIND. by a KARST studio holder, following Katy Richardson’s exhibition A Cake of Painted Tin in November 2021.

This project gave us the opportunity to work with students from Highstreet Primary and Pilgrim Primary, many of whom had previously never visited an art gallery. We ran multiple sessions with KARST studio artist Anna Boland, exploring the BAS9 theme of migration of bodies, peoples, plants, objects, ideas and forms.

The school groups visited KARST and were introduced to works by exhibiting BAS9 artists Hardeep Pandhal, Mandy El-Sayegh, James Bridle, Helen Cammock, and Ghislaine Leung. In response to the exhibition, each student created their own zine featuring drawings and collage. These were later used as the starting point for a series of large-scale collaborative wall pieces on canvas. The students’ creations explore materiality and layering, particularly drawing on the artistic styles of Hardeep Pandhal and Mandy El-Sayegh.

Anna Boland, who led the workshops, said: ‘It’s been great to work with local schools in Plymouth and introduce the students to artists and KARST gallery. Working with the students to experiment and explore their creative potential and giving them an insight into what artists do has been a lot of fun.’