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EXPERIMENTAL SPACE COLLECTIVE
BETWEEN TWO DOORS
Aya Hastwell, Ean Konopnicki, Ceyda Oskay, Judy Nakazato, Pragya Bhargava, Sally Stenton, Sandy Layton, Sarah Praill, Svetlana Atlavina
Exhibition and events by Experimental Space Collective [esc] at Watford Museum, Watford, United Kingdom.
In our distanced spaces we connected via the screen and created full size doors from recycled cardboard packaging, paper, fabric and shadows. The doors became symbols for our imaginary travel between places to greet one another. Handles were created from clay, suggesting the means by which we might open the doors. It became a collective group endeavour, a symbolic and tangible drive to overcome isolation…. to escape.
The project was initiated by Ceyda Oskay in the form of an online explorative drawing workshop, and an invitation to make two sides of a door: an inside, and an outside. There was a strong impetus to connect with one another. We made physical doors in our homes and we stepped out of our front doors to walk at the same time in different places, creating portals from one place to another.
Digital images of our creations were exchanged via the internet, bringing other artists' doors and handles into our homes via screens. We exhibited them at the same time in our own location on walls, doors, trees, windscreens, the back of car seats, derelict buildings and pages of a virtual book. We documented our dispersed exhibitions and shared the images online.
Then the opportunity arose to present our doors and story in a physical exhibition at Watford Museum and invite others to participate in creating doors, handles and journeys together.
Events
As a part of the show we hosted opening performances, meet the artists event, portal walk and four workshops; Doors in our Life, Space Place: Thresholds, Clayground and a Walk Through Doors.
WORKSHOPS
Doors in our life
Hosted by Svetlana Atlavina at Watford Museum
When walking through physical doors we enter different static and movable spaces. During the art workshop, everyone was invited to create an artwork to tell a story about their special, favourite or ordinary door.
Materials were provided for the duration of the art workshop: painting and drawing tools, coloured pencils, pastels, charcoal, acrylics and watercolours, rolls of wallpaper, cardboard/packaging paper, glue and scissors. Works made during the workshop were displayed at the museum and became part of the show.
Space Place: Thresholds
Hosted online from India by Pragya Bhargava
What can we do at a threshold?
A threshold is a sill of a door that connects the two sides.
In this workshop we looked at thresholds as an edge and a beginning that connects familiar physical places to fantastical spaces of wonder and possibilities. Participants used drawing and collage techniques to create works that re-interpret thresholds using memory, images and imagination.
Clayground
Hosted by Sandy Layton at Watford Museum
The participants were invited to have fun using clay and their imagination to create miniature doors, door handles or doorknobs. The participants were given clay to experiment freely with and create artworks in response to Between Two Doors exhibition.
A Walk Through Doors
Hosted online from Turkey by Ceyda Oskay
In this workshop, participants were led through a series of imaginative journeys, related to spaces and doors... experimental prompts include mark making while "knocking" on an imaginary door, walking into the drawing space and walking through a house imagining it as the space inside your mouth... Participants were encouraged to bring drawing / painting supplies of any kind, and a door-size drawing surface (could be found paper, packaging, cardboard boxes opened up, etc...). Collage materials or fabric was also encouraged.
CROSS COUNTRY INSTALLATION
October 2021
Turkey, India, United Kingdom and Kazakhstan
EXHIBITION
1st April - 30th April 2022
Watford Museum, United Kingdom
MEET THE ARTISTS
Saturday 16th April 2022 at Watford Museum
Saturday, 23rd April 2022
Location: Anywhere in the world
People were invited to take a walk wherever they were in the world. They walked at the same time and all paused at the same moment to take a photo of whatever was around them.
The images from different places were paired and overlaid and people were invited to imagine stepping from one place to the other.
This was the 4th PORTAL Walk and the first to connect lots of countries simultaneously.
Images from the walks can be found here: