Summer Update
Dear Friends,
It has been quite some time since my last newsletter. I'll begin with why that is and then let you know about some ongoing projects.
In December last year I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, which has meant that I have spent the majority of this year in hospital full-time having chemotherapy, and most recently a stem cell transplant. I am now at outpatient which is great progress, but I have a long road of recovery ahead of me. So my studio practice has been on hiatus while I am on this complex and difficult health journey.
However, this has also meant that I've had to think more about how to produce work without being present on site. It’s been a challenge but this year I have managed to complete a couple of projects that I am really proud of that I would like to share with you.
In the summer of 2023, I worked with more than 50 residents of the Devonshire ward in Eastbourne to make paintings relating to the neighbourhood. These paintings used stencils associated with the area’s history, population, and businesses, its flora and fauna and its location in the town. These elements were subsequently brought together to fashion a rich and vibrantly patterned textile, which is now being given back to the community.
The basic premise of Riviera began with the history of the palm trees found across the ward. The planting of these kinds of exotic trees was intended to create a sense of travel, of being elsewhere, and reference an otherness or foreignness related to holidays abroad. Many British seaside resorts modelled themselves on the image of the French and Italian rivieras. With Mediterranean communities living in the Devonshire Ward today, along with many other people from around the world, what was once alluded to in architectural detail is now part of the everyday cultural life of the neighbourhood.
Opening this week in Eastbourne, and running through the summer, Riviera is an exhibition and series of workshops both using and giving away the fabric. It is being installed on shop awnings around town, and is available for anyone to take, for free, from Volt Gallery. Whatever people do with the fabric, either at home or as part of sewing workshops run as part of the exhibition, will be shared through an online archive.
Riviera is a public art commission led by Towner Eastbourne in collaboration with Devonshire Collective.
28th July - 9th September 2024
67–69 Seaside Road
Eastbourne
BN21 3PL
Be Water, My Friend is a public mural illustrating the water cycle, as it relates to the island of Aegina, where I live, and the surrounding islands.
The mural is a project by Vessel, the collective studio I co-founded on the island, and was created with our friends and community there. It is part of an ongoing series of projects concerning water use, quality, and scarcity on the island. It is sited in the main playground of the island, which was heavily damaged by the extreme flooding which severely affected Aegina in September 2023.
This work was created with the support of EMST (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens) whose Extar Muros project aims to facilitate projects made outside of Athens and in local communities beyond the capital city. EMST has subsequently acquired the work for their collection, in the form of preparatory materials and the right to reproduce the work elsewhere in the future.
Compass, and the Pollock-Krasner Award
This year I was one of the 2023-2024 recipients of the Pollock-Krasner Artist Grant. For almost forty years, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation has provided artists with vital funding through which they can create new works, expand their practice, and contribute to the field as a whole. Lee Krasner established the Pollock-Krasner Foundation as a demonstration of her commitment to supporting generations of visual artists to follow. It was a huge personal moment for me to receive this recognition for my work, particularly in such a difficult year.
One project which the award will support is my ongoing Compass project, which uses the theme of navigation and the figure of the compass rose to explore personal stories, and journeys, around the Mediterranean.
In November 2023, I travelled with fellow Vessel member, film-maker Sofia Georgovassili, to Hayy Open Space in İzmir, to facilitate a workshop based in the history of the population exchange between Türkiye and Greece in the early 20th century. I look forward to sharing more of this project with you in the future.
Healing Space
Finally, I spoke with design research collective DRU+ last year about colour, hospitals, and health, based on my work with St Mary’s Hospital Paddington in London. You can listen to it, as well as other fascinating episodes, here.
Thanks for reading, and a special thanks to all of those who have supported me in the last few challenging months.
Yours,
Navine