As we were coming to the end of our degree we decided as a collective that we would book a week in the recently opened Artspace on the Prom after a visit to see the space and talking to the two artists running the space, both who were studying their MA in Fine Art at NUA. (https://cromer-artspace.uk/events/venues/artspace-on-the-prom).
We didn't want to just exhibit our work, it was much more of a space we intended to use to create workshops that we would offer to the public as well as putting a selection of our work up. The plan was to develop work while we were there too and add to the exhibition. This is something that gave us a lot of flexibility and made the space much more of a working space.
Dealing with the end of our degree, submission, graduation, Free Range, getting jobs and the summer did mean we had to put together our workshops and try to promote the opportunity in quite a short space of time. The first thing we needed was some sort of branding and flyer/online leaflet to promote our proposition. I didn't want to get all corporate with the logo, just put something together and not think too deeply about. In rather the vein of 2Faulty I collaged random typefaces torn from a selection of magazines.
It was then a matter of trying to explain who we are and what we intended to do.
Each of the four participants put forward their own workshop ideas that we all discussed and decided which ones that would work in the space and the time of year we had managed to book. These we put out as individual posts and set up as Facebook Events.
The first workshop was created and run by Sally. As with much of Sally's work it was about words, poems and performance. After discussing various words from lyrics or poems we decided to go down on the beach and create them in the sand. This gave them a feeling of being temporary, as words are and as the tide came in they were gone, forgotten.
This was my workshop and something I had adapted after assisting in delivering it at NUA.
It meant making visual line drawings as observations that were then taken and with a partner overlaying them to create compositions on tracing paper. The next stage was to take these 2D images and turn them into 3D. This is always the biggest stage and provides the most challenges, however the results can be quite surprising.
This was Freya's one and we were reflecting back on some of the things we did in Year 0 that resonated with us the most and this iteration was certainly one of them. Freya added a 2Faulty twist that meant the words used for the drawings were randomly generated giving no preconceived idea of what we could draw. All drawings were done to a time limit to encourage spontaneous response.
The final workshop was hosted by Jo and it was a Collage one with a twist.. in so much as it was three dimensional, hence the title. It was one that did mean interpretation was up to the individual and the results were quick different around the table as we all looked to see what materials would work with what and how we may start to use the space around us interacting with the environment.
Cromer Bagots
We had intentionally left ourselves time to create our own work and one of the things that had struck a chord of being in Cromer was the Bagots that are used in the summer on the cliff edge to keep the vegetation down. I have lived in Norfolk for over 30 years and never seen these creatures and neither had the others so we decided to create our own... the Mystical Cromer Bagots!
2Faulty Exhibition
All during the week examples of our previous output was on show and we continued to add to this as we delivered each workshop and created further work. We also took some of our creations out into the environment and looked to see how they may interact, blend or reflect what was around them.
Dada Poems
We also created our Dada Poems each Workshop day and these, as ever, provided much inspiration and fascinating results. Below are a couple of the poems we created during our residency. For these we take the combined age of the people present, including guests and those who have signed up and then using random books we go to page that relates to that combined age number and select a sentence, phrase or a few words in turn.
2Faulty Poem – Wednesday 7th September 2022.
Artspace on the Prom Cromer
Them, together, the tree and its dreamer take their places, grow tall
It is striking
Time is the measure of motion (‘the numeration of continuous movement’)
Carpeted with wild orchids
Most thugs were mild looking a peculiarly courteous
When a poet knows that a living thing is in search of its soul, this means that he is in search of his own
Unified assembly under pressure
Temporal organisation is a fundamental requirement
Both Sylvia Pankhurst and George Landsbury attended the opening ceremony in that same year
They succeeded in murdering the whole party without detection.
2Faulty Poem – Thursday 8th September 2022.
Artspace on the Prom Cromer
From the solitude of a belfry-tower, a man watches other men
Nothing to be frightened of
Not even in this way do we obtain a notion of a common present
A soggy man makes a rather good lightening conductor
Separate the daydreamer from the restless world
Wider than the sky the control of biological time
This is the representation of the casual structure of a blackhole
To snoop around some rather wonderful village gardens
The Mirrored Plinth
Jo has a plinth made entirely of mirrors that has been used in several locations and environments but never on the beach. It made for some really wonderful images as it made people disappear, it even vanished itself at certain angles then brought in segments of the sky and planted them on the beach. So much of our work is about play and this was certainly right up our street.
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