Curious Brighton Festival audiences and local residents are invited to Animal Place – an enthralling habitat of moving animals taking over East Brighton creative space The Spire from May 20 – 29.
Visitors are invited to bring an object, or find a fragment of material from around the building. Artist Tim Spooner will give it a new life as part of a new or existing animal in the installation.
Found or donated objects may become an animal’s head, its feet, its organs, or be encrusted into its skin. All will form part of the way these object-animals move: their balance, weight and momentum. Watch as they try to move, try to put one foot in front of another, and try not to fall over!
Tim Spooner is a London-based artist working in performance, installation, painting and sculpture. His work is inspired by the power of objects, and the specific meaning and identity they can carry despite their abstract and mysterious nature.
Tim has already created more than 30 animals for Animal Place out of forgotten objects during creative workshops with local children and adults, including pupils from St Mark’s Primary School; users of Craven Vale Community Centre; and participants from Cascade Creative Recovery and Small Performance Adventures.
About the installation, Tim said: “I’m interested in the idea that the world is inhabited by objects that we take no notice of. They live out their existence under the radar. I want to give these objects more opportunity for visibility and agency.
“I’m interested in the boundary (if there is one) between inanimate and animate, so the project aims for somewhere between the two, producing hybrid object-animals. I’m also interested in opening up the process of making and thinking – so Animal Place has been made in collaboration with groups of local children and adults, as well as anyone else who wants to join in while the installation is open.”
The Spire is East Brighton’s independent creative space, located in the Grade II listed former St Mark’s Chapel in Kemptown. Animal Place is The Spire’s latest partnership with Brighton Festival following The Candle Project (2021), XFRMA (2018) and Lou Reed Drones (2016).
Co-Artistic Directors Faith Dodkins and David Sheppeard said: “In Animal Place, Tim has taken an ingenious and unique approach to the themes of this year’s festival: rediscover, reimagine, rebuild.
“At The Spire, we’re interested in projects that encourage audiences to get involved, and by contributing to Animal Place we hope that they will see their everyday objects transformed into some extraordinary new species.”
Animal Place is part of Brighton Festival 2022, which takes place across the city from 7 – 29 May. Entry is free. For more info, CLICK HERE
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