Welcome to the Art Gene's Blog site.
We hope you find this site interesting and look forward to receiving any feed-back to help us extend our international research base.
You may wish to visit our web site for further information about our (Inter)national Artists and Curators Research Residency Programmes, Exhibitions, Events and Symposiums: www.artgene.co.uk
Art Gene is a new artist led initiative founded in 2002 in Barrow-in-Furness, UK.
Established to pursue curatorial and creative excellence Art Gene provides high quality managed studios, and a spacious contemporary gallery through which it delivers its programme of research residencies with (inter)national artists and curators, exhibitions, events and symposiums.
Contacts:
UK Office: Contact: Artist/Founders c/o artgeneuk@btconnect.com
China Office: Contact: Lucy Chen, International Relationships Manager, fifalucia@yahoo.com.cn
Japan Office: Contact: Tomoko Takahashi, International Relationships Manager, anticool769@hotmail.com
Art Gene Mission Statement
To establish a facility of local, national and international significance for artists and art led initiatives, dedicated to the production and exhibition of new works of contemporary art, through the provision of affordable managed workspaces, and galleries. To provide new audiences with the opportunity to see high quality contemporary art and demonstrate its relevance, importance and contribution to social and economic regeneration.
Over the next five years Art Gene will consolidate and further it’s links with International organisations through the development of focused research residencies enquiring into the ‘transferability’ of (Inter)national Art and the practical application of Artists thinking and skills in the regeneration of the built and social environment.
International Offices
In February 2007 Art Gene established new offices in China and Japan following a month long international development tour by Stuart Bastik and Maddi Nicholson. The offices will help Art Gene to consolidate and develop its current and future programmes of work with Chinese and Japanese Artists and Arts Organisations.
Art Gene Manifesto
(Extracts)
Relation to Place and Community
Art Gene is committed to research into artists’ contribution to and ‘engagement’ in socio-economic & socio-cultural progress.
Art should be a staple part of our everyday lives, like bread, & in that respect it should be ordinary, albeit an extraordinary ordinariness, but no less essential in sustaining life.
Art is most likely to be poignant & widely accepted & understood as ‘functional’ when created in a conducive, aspirational & 'cross-cultural' (outside of art-world) environment:
Art Gene argues for the eradication of what might be termed ‘Tourist Art’: that which transmutes simplified historical facts and clichéd particularities of place into ‘Art’, which are then mistaken for ‘truth’ or having meaning.
Research & Regeneration
Art Gene asserts:
Pure research is essential to all forms of (non-linear) progress, not only in art, but in all forms of human endeavour, be it in the development of society, industry, science or technology.
Aims to:
Create an Internationally significant facility that is conducive to the generation and exchange of ideas, …one that genuinely responds to the professional needs of practicing artists and the context/s, both geographical and social, in which they create.
Raise the profile of and to champion, contemporary visual art by engaging audiences and creating an environment that promotes dialogue, critical debate and opportunities for participation and partnership working.
Continue its commitment to research and Artists’ contribution to and engagement with socio-economic & socio-cultural progress and the mechanisms and processes behind effective forward thinking approaches to Regeneration.
Draw out the unspoken intent, which lies behind the desire to create… and its interface with universality in the human condition: one, which extends beyond orthodox western-art-centric critical frameworks, markets, ‘the gallery’ system & narrow aesthetic definitions of culture.
Future projects
(Inter)national Charette
Architecture and the Built Environment
Aims:
To free the creativity of artists and architects, re-define orthodox working relationships between art and architectural disciplines and establish new models in applied working practice.
To establish a greater degree of integration between consultants and the consulted: recognising that in order to facilitate aspirations and empower the ‘client’/communities we must also ‘contract’, manage and embrace a shared responsibility in the realisation of solutions.
Think-tank:
The Charette process will lead to the formation of an on-going think-tank of artists and architects meeting regularly to explore and implement solutions to the built environment and realise innovative new-build and capital ‘regeneration’ projects.
The think-tank will also explore other potentials offered by, for instance, the re-application of existing shipbuilding and naval architectural skills in Barrow. These skills could prove revolutionary in creating modular prefabricated and ecological building models for the future.
Applied Research
Art House Project:
Art Gene regularly engages Artists from across the world and wishes to provide them with inspiring but practical accommodation that is reflective of our aspirations for the built environment.
Terraced housing in Barrow is currently being demolished, as it is perceived to be unsuitable for modern living and contribute to social problems.
Art Gene aims to purchase a series of typical bottom-end-of-the-market Barrow terraced houses and remodel them for the 21st century.
As each ‘new’ house is developed it will be used to accommodate Residency Artists in its first year. We will then extend our research base and truly ‘test’ our schemes by renting houses to a range of tenants, engaging them in an on-going process of evaluation.
Each house will be developed out of our Charette process and think-tank but by differently constituted design teams thereby providing a range of innovative contemporary re-builds, punctuating the build environment, enlivening communities and re-purposing skills that already exist within the local workforce.
Background
Art Gene was established in 2002 as a not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee, in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, North West England.
Founded by artists Stuart Bastik and Maddi Nicholson, and Julie Hammerton, director of Barracudas Limited, Art Gene was envisaged as a research facility for artists and art led initiatives - a facility where new contemporary work in all mediums could be produced and exhibited, and where ideas could be developed and exchanged.
The building, which Art Gene now occupies, was built in 1903 as the ‘School for the Advancement of Science, Arts and Technology’ and later became known as Barrow Technical College. The building was used to train the thousands of highly skilled workers needed in the town’s shipyard. The shipyard met demands for surface ships and submarines during two World Wars and later the production of nuclear submarines, a specialism that continues today.
The Technical College vacated the Grade 2 listed building in 1989 and it was left to fall further into dereliction for another 10 years. In 1999 Art Gene’s artists/founders took occupancy of several large spaces and worked to demonstrate the viability of the building for arts use and helped the County Council to develop a funding package to save the building and repurpose it.
Cumbria County Council commissioned Stuart Bastik and Maddi Nicholson as consultant artists with a remit to work closely with the project architect, Mark Wharton, on the development and implementation of the scheme. The building reopened in 2002 after a £4 million purpose designed redevelopment, which included spaces for several County Council Departments in addition to those now, leased by Art Gene.
Art Gene occupies two thirds of the building, purpose designed for artists use - 1500 sq.m / 16,000 sq.ft of spaces allocated to self contained artists studios and dedicated (inter)national artists’ research residency spaces, a rehearsal/conference space, a functions/landing gallery, and the spacious Art Gene Gallery.
Art Gene gratefully acknowledges the support of our funders.
Art Gene is a Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) of Arts Council England Art Gene also receives regular support from Cumbria County Council and Barrow Borough Council.
Premises Redevelopment (Phase 1) of Art Gene premises was funded by:
European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
Single Regeneration Budget (SRB)
North West Development Agency (NWDA)
Heritage Lottery
Cumbria County Council
Art Pod ‘The Gallery’ (Phase 2) which will upgrade the facilities in the Art Gene Gallery during 2007 has recently been funded by:
Capital Arts Lottery
West Lakes Renaissance
The Linbury Trust
