October brings falling leaves and chilly nights but for us it also means new residents! We would like to introduce six (yes, six!) residents who will be drawing inspiration from the Museum collections during the next six months.
Matthew Raw
October 2014 – March 2015
Supported by Jeremy and Margaret Strachan
Matthew Raw is an artist who works predominantly with clay and responds to people and place to create sculptural objects. He discovered a love for working with his hands and materials on the Wood, Metal, Ceramics & Plastics BA at the University of Brighton. In 2010 he completed a Masters at the Royal College of Art in Ceramic & Glass. Within his diverse practice, Matthew places a strong emphasis on residencies – this has resulted in time spent at the International Ceramic Research Centre in Denmark, Cranbrook Academy of Arts in Detroit, and the British Ceramic Biennale in Stoke-on-Trent. He exhibits internationally and this year was selected for the Jerwood Makers Open. He lives in London and works out of Studio Manifold in Hoxton, East London.
My Residency: The focus of my residency will be to investigate the current climate of domestic art education, and I plan to manifest these findings, thoughts and feelings in ceramics by exploring the ‘three-dimensionality of the tile’. With my experiences from school through to MA, and now being an educator myself, I am well placed and engaged in this ever-changing and topical issue. After my Masters, I worked for a year at the Royal College of Art Students Union, and was involved in the demonstrations against the then planned (now implemented) funding cuts to art courses. The lack of art lessons given at schools, and the hike in University tuition fees, coupled with an overall educational focus on recruitment and profits, present huge concerns that I feel I want to understand more and ultimately tackle.
Find out more about Matthew and his work here.
Photo: Ester Segarra
Speed Residents
October – Decmber 2014
For the first time we invite five young artists and designers, who have all graduated from University this year, to inhabit one of our residency studios for a two week period each. The residents specialise in a variety of disciplines and will each be researching and interrogating many different areas of the Museum’s collections.
Even though each residency period is only two weeks, the group will be taking part in numerous activities over the three months and will be returning to the Museum in March to display the work they created during their time here.
Rudy Hartt
Rudy Hartt is a multidisciplinary graphic designer creating in areas of digital and printed design, illustration, branding and spatial design.
He has recently graduated from the Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London, where he studied filmmaking, animation, and storytelling on the Ba (Hons) Graphic Design – Moving Image pathway. It was here that he began to create performance-based artworks and his final year portfolio showcased a documentary film, a newly-adapted theatre production and a dynamic photography project.
My Residency: During my residency at the Victoria and Albert Museum, I will be developing a new project entitled ‘Truth Through Fiction’ – to reimagine Aesop’s Fables, a collection of stories that have been passed down through the millennia. Drawing on the museum’s extensive collections, as well as a broad palette of animation, digital design and filmmaking techniques, I aim to carefully capture their timeless quality, while presenting them in contemporary context for the modern audience.
Find out more about Rudy and his work here.
Vincent Larkin
Vincent Larkin is an artist who despite being born in Melbourne, Australia has lived most of his life in the UK. His practice is based around the idea of the uncomfortable narrative; the overlaps and diversions in the way we tell the story of ourselves. In the pursuit of this idea he uses book form, printed media, web-based media and sometimes song.
Vincent has recently gained an MA in Authorial Illustration from Falmouth College of Art. In the past year his work has been exhibited at the Bookartbookshop in London, and featured as part of the Tate Britain’s Source Spotlight Display for the Pattern, Graphics, Print month. Previous to this Vincent has been involved in illustrating articles dealing with philosophy and history for the Pictograma Magazine, based in Seville, Spain.
My Residency: During my residency period, I intend to create two separate hand-made illustrated books. The first book will tell a specific story of pre-1963 British popular music with reference to the V&A’s Harry Hammond photographic collection. The second book will explore the story of our music today, informed by dialogue with visitors to the V&A.
Find out more about Vincent and his work here
Alix Marie
Alix Marie is a French artist based in London working across the mediums of photography and sculpture. She graduated in 2011 from Central Saint Martins College with a First Class Honours Bachelor of Fine Art and in 2014 from MA Photography at the Royal College Of Art in London. She received a distinction for her dissertation work upon photography and fetish. Alix has exhibited internationally since 2009 and taken part in residencies in Slovenia (2012), Iceland (2012), Scotland (2013 &2014), and Morocco (2014). In 2014 she was awarded the Peaches and Cream IV graduate photography prize organised by Millennium Images and will be doing a year mentorship programme with Metro Imaging.
My Residency: During my time at the V&A, I will be looking at Rodin’s sculptures, which he donated to the Museum as a token of friendship between France and the UK in 1914. Rodin played a key role in the birth of modern sculpture. I feel it is an exciting opportunity to be revisiting his work through photography today as the medium is increasingly crossing the boundaries of sculpture and installation. Rodin was one of the first sculptors to understand and use photography extensively. There is something photographic in Rodin’s way of working his sculptures; their reproducibility, editions, different sizes and materials.
Find out more about Alix and her work here
Thom Swann
Thom Swann is a designer and artist from the Suffolk coast. Having recently graduated with a BA in Graphic Design from Kingston University London, he is developing a practice centred around typography, drawing and writing. Between graduating and the start of this residency, Thom has been carrying out an internship at the esteemed John Morgan Studio. He is also the editor of online design magazine, New Practice.
My Residency: I will use this wonderful opportunity of being a graduate resident at the V&A to study in depth the work of expert letterers, draftsmen and printers to further my historical knowledge and to consider how this historical knowledge can be utilised in a relevant, contemporary way.
Find out more about Thom and his work here
Noemi Niederhauser
Noemi Niederhauser is an artist who was born and lived in Lausanne, Switzerland before to come study and work in London. She creates mix-media installations that challenge historical, ethnographic and scientific narratives in proposing new systems of exchange and modes of interpretation.
Noemi recently gained an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and before this studied at the Applied Art school of Vevey, Switzerland, within the ceramic department. She has exhibited internationally and participated in artist-in-residence programmes in Shiragaki, Japan in 2009 and The National Art School of Limoges, France in 2011. Her work is featured in various institutions such as the MUDAC: museum of contemporary art, Lausanne, Switzerland.
My Residency: During my residency here, my aim is to to re-interpret a linen piece of the museum’s textile collection. I will analyse the patterns of one archived Swiss printed linen (1700) in creating a whole narrative about them, hence examining this object with the eyes of our present time and its possible misunderstanding. It will involve a research into traditional Swiss patterns, costumes and carnival processions; taking as reference historical knowledge about the patterns but with necessary approximation, hypothesis, invention and failures. I plan to experiment and use different techniques of print-making in my process of working – traditional and new ones – allowing a blurred historical narrative to emerge. The aim of the project, is to enlarge one chosen detail until it escapes its initial state and becomes the starting point of an entire new micro order of relational objects.
Find out more about Noemi and her work here
To keep updated on open studios and workshops run by our Artists in Residence click here.
Did you know we are on Pinterest? Follow the V&A’s Artist in Residence board to see what inspires them and what they create.
