Reimagining the British Witch
My first encounter with the works of Hayley Potter was in 2008, and the Secret Creature project: a diverse melange of strange, semi-believable owl-sheep-cat-bat-birds that flocked together in the branches…
Art
Oikeusjuttu (The Trial)
In Finland, the wolf is both more and less than an animal; it is a symbol. And this November sees a court case in which the very nature of that…
A Needle Walks into a Haystack
Sound carries. And it is the sounds of political and social unrest that offer one of the most interesting threads for navigating this year’s Liverpool Biennial – a constellation of…
What Was Once the Threshing Barn
Public/private, urban/rural, commercial/not-for-profit: it’s not like the waters between the two have ever been crystal clear, but now, with the opening in Somerset of the latest outpost of contemporary art…
The Beast is not only the Tiger
The top floor of a modernist apartment block seems an unlikely location for the studio of an artist best-known for his engagement with botany. Nonetheless this is where we find…
The Sensorial Invisibility of Plants
Laura Cinti’s work stretches the boundaries of our understanding of plant behaviour. Cinti is best known as an artist who works with biology, and, in addition to her own practice,…
The Story of a Single Rock
Like many stories, this one begins with a rock, in fact one rock amongst many: the shifting shingle which geographically defines and continually redefines the salt marshes of Orford Ness….
Touching Wood
Rarely do curators at large public museums co-ordinate concurrent exhibitions to complement each other. But by chance or design, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC) in Santiago, Chile, is bucking…
Twelve-Fisted Boxing Caterpillar
On my way back from the gallery I took a train and experienced the usual flicker of annoyance when the conductor began speaking to us as if we were in…
Arkhipelagos
There is a sense of relief, upon leaving this exhibition, of being palpably bound up with pavement, sky and, a few short paces away, the murky heave and rush of…
Leap Towards Yourself
This February sees the publication a new book that spans the entire career of Israeli photographer Sharon Ya’ari. Coinciding with a major exhibition of his work at the Tel Aviv…