For the past two months, Timespan’s youth arts group OURS have been working on a curatorial project, which has presented them with the exciting challenge of commissioning an artist to exhibit in Timespan’s gallery next year.
The group designed a double sited commission, inviting Scotland based artist to propose a body of work in response to Helmsdale’s 19 Century Ice House. The work would be exhibited/performed/installed in the Ice House along with a simultaneous exhibition of work in the gallery of documentation and /or related work.
The project was advertised in all the major art forums and the response we received was fantastic. Over 200 artists requested the application pack and 52 artists finally applied for the opportunity. The group had the long and challenging task of short listing a handful of artists for telephone interview with lead artist Ruth Macdougall, and after a lot of consideration the group have finally commissioned the following artist:
Chris Dooks, Cultural Polymash www.dooks.org
Chris’ bio
‘’Trained as both photographer and film-maker, in my twenties I was directing arts-based TV documentaries such as ITV's The South Bank Show. Since then I’ve morphed and evolved to become a conceptual artist in my own right. Multimedia, sound art, music, song writing and fiction all feature equally in my practice. The Sunday Herald bestowed upon me the title of ‘polymath’. I thought that sounded a bit too mathematical, so coined ‘polymash’ to infer something softer, and dare I say it, fun!
I am a highly adaptable cultural practitioner, and more than anything else I enjoy residencies. Whether the end result is a film, an installation, a collection of songs, a podcast, or a piece of creative writing, I feel at my most useful collecting oral history, songs, and visual culture, and working with diverse communities to form elements of any given residency. I’ve made around 45 projects over the last twelve years, in Scotland, England, Holland, and the USA, and have released five full length electronic music albums on various labels. Most recently, The Aesthetic Animals Album, a collection of new songs and laptop-folk, was released on Benbecula Records (benbecula.com) I also currently present a net-radio show on unusual music. I make single screen works for video as well as build installations in galleries, do site specific work, and also design psychogeographic tours. My tours aim to tweak an audience’s perception of an environment, in this case without the need to physically create a piece of art. A good example is The Polyfaith Tour of Edinburgh (polyfaith.com).’’ Chris Dooks
Ice House proposal
The phrase “I use echo” is an anagram of Ice House.
Using techniques from my psychogeographic tOURS, which flirt with the truth, we will ironically be encouraging a sense of enquiry and genuine historical research in the community. The OURS group will work with me on looking at what parts of the building could reveal stories which will be peppered with a mixture of real facts and fiction. The tour will turn the Ice house into art/historical object and the OURS group and myself will, through the use of temporary light and sound and/or the internet, develop a tour which makes folk feel connected to the building by their creative participation of new narratives in it.
Both www.polyfaith.com and www.advocatesclose.co.uk are good examples of how I turn the everyday into more significant events. They are slightly underpinned by Buddhist philosophies that the real stuff, the juice, is always in front of you, it’s a matter of changing lenses. This is a proposal I am quite passionate about but it’s difficult to articulate without demonstrating it in action. The websites will help, but I would jump at the chance to show you some of these techniques.’’ Chris Dooks
Chris will work on this project with his partner and author, Eleanor Thom whose ancestors were in fact Sutherland Travellers. Chris and Eleanor will be resident in Timespans’ artist flat between 12 and 18 January undertaking their research week, during which time they will witness the opening of the river, take in Lorna Jappy’s fantastic story tour of the village and hold their own events to meet local people and encourage the vital dialogue that will make this project truly unique.
We hope that the people of Helmsdale will make the most of having these exciting artists in their midst, helping them to create a fantastic work that will celebrate the ice house and the surrounding area.
"I've filmed Killer Whales in St Kilda, made a Gaelic film in Harris and recreated the Wicker Man Movie in rural Aberdeenshire, but I've never worked in and around an Ice House in what I would call The Proper North East of Scotland! which is nice, because I originally hail from The Proper Northeast of England! We are really looking forward to meeting everyone in Helmsdale. Myself and my partner Eleanor Thom, who has links with Sutherland Travellers, will be delighted to welcome anyone to an introduction on our take with this project. We will be giving two presentations of our work in the research week (12-18 January) - one will be an introduction to me/us, and at the end of the week I will present what form the final project will take. In the meantime, if you want to contact us or have a poke at our websites go to two of mine here - www.dooks.org and www.bovineradio.wordpress.com - and for Eleanor go to www.eleanorthom.com"
Chris Dooks
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