Spacex Gallery
Location:
Exeter
Web site:
www.spacex.co.uk Project Title: The Haldon Hill Project
Lead Group: Spacex Gallery, Exeter
Partner Groups: Form Concepts Collective (main mentee group), Exeter Central Library, BBC Big Screen, Centre for Contemporary art and the Natural World, Flying Start Children's Centre
Artists: Anna Aroussi, Fan Austin, Katy Bull, Lucy Cox, Penny Evans, Claire Gunningham, David Hotton, Jenny Mellings, Alex Saunders (Form Concepts Collective)
Spacex, a small publicly-funded contemporary art gallery in Exeter, mentored a local graffiti art group responding to a call from residents of Haldon Hill Travellers' Site. The gallery found an informal way of working that informed a parallel series of drawing events about social space.
Alex Saunders of Form Concepts Collective spent long days at Haldon Hill, whenever the weather was good, working in a very informal way with adults at the site. After Alex had demonstrated various spray paint techniques people started to have a go themselves, decorating their homes or working on canvases. There has been a strong social aspect to the activity with people getting to know their neighbours better and drinking many cups of tea. Both Spacex and Form Concepts Collective have learnt how working informally can be effective in getting adults involved in their own time and in their own way.
Social Space
Spacex also planned a programme of drawing activities and events in galleries and public places, focused on the concept of social space.
A group of teenagers, Spacex Young Drawing Ambassadors, helped facilitate an artist-led workshop for adults and children visiting the Exeter Central Library. The young people planned the event themselves, choosing architecture from literature as the theme. They decided that participants would construct drawn and cut out building facades and named their event ‘Thawbridge’, after a fictional town based on an anagram of ‘The Big Draw’. There was an enthusiastic response from visitors on the day and the resulting cardboard town was finally lit with fairy lights before being displayed.
Another event was a public breakfast drawing workshop using breakfast ingredients as materials. One morning, from 8am – 10am, adults and their families were invited to share breakfast at Spacex Gallery and experiment with drawing in unusual materials such as coffee, chocolate, cinnamon and icing sugar. It was a fun event, attracting young and old to the gallery.
