A Walk Through

Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Greenwich University Campus
Private View: Thursday 24 January 2008, 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Exhibition Dates: 25 January – 15 February 2008

See photos

The OMSK Collective has a history of producing platform events for live artists, film/video makers and sonic artists. Itinerant and irreverent, the OMSK ideology sits outside of the cinema, theatre and gallery space, and their recent publication - OMSKBOOK, is indicative of how the collective and its affiliates tamper with and question the existing formats of cultural production. In A Walk Through, OMSK brings this exploratory approach to the Stephen Lawrence Gallery, where the white cube space is dissolved and the visitor is recast as participant. Collective members Jamie Bargeman, Steven Eastwood, Sally Irvine, Hannah Metcalfe, Clare Moloney, along with associates Bill Aitchison, Quartet Electronishe and Woodrow Kernohan, expand the perimeters of the gallery by locating art works around its vicinity and throughout the campus of Greenwich University.

This attitude of exposing process is echoed in each of the artist’s works:

• A Seminar in Film Sound, Eastwood unpicks the stitching together of sound in the cinema transaction, holding a mirror up to the cinema’s face by way of a re-enacted student presentation;
• Bargeman & Irvine’s The Palace of Placentia, a series of incidental installations explore the psycho-physical history of the campus buildings;
• Nothing Comes Close, Metcalfe constructs a giant paper aeroplane which both articulates the intricate beauty of high-minded engineering and the unpalatablility of oil;
• A Blow to the Head, Moloney sets up a writing desk on campus, embarks on her first novel and lays bare her strategies for writing and not-writing;
• ‘Quartet Operation’, by Quartet Electronishe, presents the material value of a complex concert preparation and technical set-up;
• Kernohan’s Four-Four, the seemingly utilitarian process of drilling holes is made visual and deconstructed to produce a profoundly melodic soundscape;
• Bill Aitchison walks the viewer through the exhibition with a commentary entitled Auto Theatre. Aitchison will perform Auto Theatre live at the private view on Thursday 24 January 2008 and thereafter it will be available as an audio recording for visitors as they wander around the artworks.

A Walk Through is first exhibition in the Stephen Lawrence Gallery Borders & Identities series.

Stephen Lawrence Gallery: University of Greenwich, Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, Greenwich, London SE10 9LS
Transport links: Cutty Sark DLR, Greenwich Station British Rail and Maze Hill British Rail.
Contact details: David Waterworth: 020 8331 8260 or slg@gre.ac.uk

Stephen Lawrence Gallery
The university established the Stephen Lawrence Gallery in 2000 to provide a showcase for the work of contemporary artists and to promote cultural diversity in the visual arts. The gallery stages ten or so exhibitions a year and covers a variety of media, from photography and video projections to sculpture.