CultureDale: Artist Showcase 2024
1 July-9 August 2024
Boundary-pushing creations from the region’s finest talents commissioned in 2023 to develop new projects.
IOU Creation Centre, Dean Clough, Halifax, HX3 5AX
Event information
IOU Creation Centre, Dean Clough, Halifax, HX3 5AX
FREE
Artist Talk and Q&A
Wednesday 24 July
6.30pm
IOU Creation Centre
FREE
IOU Creation Centre Presents
Culturedale: Artist Showcase
1 July-9 August 2024
Monday- Friday 11am-4pm
Free Entry
Presented as part of Calderdale’s vibrant year of culture celebrations, the showcase offers a unique glimpse into boundary-pushing creations from the region’s finest talents commissioned in 2023 to develop new projects.
Eight artists will present an array of new works, ranging from a mesmerising ‘Salon of Curlews’ and an immersive haunted house experience to VR explorations of retinal landscapes, folklore zines, intricately hand-woven works of art, and a giant mobile sculpture. Themes of environment, belonging, and identity are entwined throughout the installations, launching IOU’s Creation Centre with a six-week journey of artistic discovery.
Complementing the exhibition, IOU will host a rich programme of wrap-around activities including workshops, artist talks, and engaging interactive sessions – more information to follow
In 2023 supported by Calderdale Council IOU was able to provide funded places for a group of exciting regional artists to develop a project with the opportunity for the work to be presented by IOU as part of Calderdale’s Year of Culture 2024.
The Artist Showcase is the culmination of the projects they have developed during their time on IOU’s Artist Development Programme or as one of our Artist in Residence at the IOU Hebden Bridge Hostel
Rachel Hawthorn
IOU Artist Development Programme 2023-24
The Luddenden Shroud
The Luddenden Shroud is a functional object and art work about life and death. The shroud and accompanying film explore many issues and questions relating to place, nature, ecology, indigeneity, grief and belonging. How can we come into right relationship with nature? How can creative practice and ancient craft help us reflect on how we live, and how we die? Can we approach death and dying in a way that enriches our lives?
Georgia D’Silva
IOU Artist in Residence 2024
A diorama of a home in Hebden Bridge
This work in progress dissects perspectives of place and notions of home, through collecting and telling the stories of residents of Hebden Bridge
Sue Walpole
IOU Artist Development Programme 2023-24
The Salon – Curlew Sickle Moon
A flock of Curlews is called a Salon, a Curfew or a Skein
Long ago folk tales tell of Curlew’s long Sickle or New Moon shaped beaks
Bringing together soundscape, projected imagery and sculptural forms that it calls you into nature, questioning human footprints on the landscape
‘The Salon’ is an experience of the coast to moorland journey Curlews make annually to lay their eggs and do battle to rear their chicks ready to return to the wetlands for winter.
Produced by Sue Walpole in collaboration with soundscape artist Jo Kennedy and audio-visual artist John Bonner – with special thanks to Billie Klinger
Armelle Skatulski
IOU Artist Development Programme 2023-24
Virtual Eyes
Virtual Eyes is a visual meditation on the anatomy of Virtual Reality bodies, attention computing, and the virtual gaze. The project stems from an interest in how ‘player eye data’ like eye movements or fixations can be collected and mined during VR interactions in so-called attention computing studies. Virtual Eyes uses various interactive heat maps designed for VR and consists of a series of video recordings made using a VR engine to explore the virtual gaze and the virtual camera for the (anti)cinematic possibilities that they offer in order to probe a tension between attention and inattention, valuable and valueless ‘data.’
Beth Cockcroft
IOU Artist in Residence 2023-24
Meadow
Beth’s publication and artworks demonstrate the drawing techniques she used during her residency, and invites viewers to participate in mindful, creative and experimental drawing activities inspired by nature, folklore and the local landscape through a scannable QR code or physical zine.
Beka Haigh
IOU Artist Development Programme 2023-24
#House
#House is a performance piece where two slightly unnerving estate agents attempt to sell a (clearly haunted) doll’s house to the highest bidder. The house is a 1:12 scale, fully illustrated model of a seemingly ordinary, northern terrace-inspired, back to back dwelling. Inside however, a whole host of strange things happen: an oven glows, a picture on the wall spins, the TV turns on, a lawnmower runs of its own accord, a tentacle rises from the bathtub and something can be seen lurking in the upstairs cupboard…
A series of accompanying workshops was delivered to young people over the course of the project to teach them some of the techniques we used to create the special effects and animated illustrations for #House.
The piece was created by Beka Haigh, Gil Burns, Rachael Gladwin and Nick Sparks and kindly supported by Arts Council England and IOU with additional support from Horse + Bamboo.
Alicja Mrozowska
IOU Artist in Residence 2022-23
Interwoven (Trzepak)
Interwoven (Trzepak) is a new site-specific installation by Alicja Mrozowska. The piece is informed by the experience of living in Poland and the UK, Alicja’s time as IOU Artist in Residence and historical references to Calderdale.
The artwork draws inspiration from Calderdale’s rich textile history and the traditional carpet hanger (trzepak) found in Poland and across Europe. In 1879, Dean Clough was home to the world’s largest carpet manufacturer, John Crossley and Sons. A trzepak was used to clean rugs and carpets outside using a carpet beater (trzepaczka). It once served as a sturdy structure for children’s games and a meeting point for neighbours, mainly in the communist and post-communist period.
Today these humble domestic objects are combined and repurposed as a new kind of meeting point, connecting Dean Clough with a Warsaw courtyard.
IOU – The Wheel
The Wheel is a mobile stage production and giant moving, remote-controlled sculpture. Within a gleaming self-propelled hub-less wheel, a miniature character walks inside, on a seemingly epic journey.
An intriguing and intimate meditation on our sense of personal identity as we face the world. The thumb-sized character walks within the giant wheel which turns almost imperceptibly. The sculpture moves through the streets at a snail’s pace and audiences are invited to slow down, to look, contemplate, and imagine the possible narratives it inspires
The Wheel is IOU’s latest production for outdoor touring and was first presented at the Festival of Thrift in 2023.
It is IOU’s last fully in-house production with David Wheeler as Artistic Director and before IOU’s
new launch as IOU Creation Centre.
IOU Creation Center is now focused on supporting and developing new work by artists from many disciplines and the company will be using its resources to bring exciting innovative new work to audiences and participants in enhanced joint collaborations.
This exhibition displays the first work being mentored and developed within this new concept, lead by IOU’s Creative Director Richard Warburton
Concept and Design: David Wheeler
Maker, Designer: Andy Plant
Interactive Photo Copy System: Loui Bins.