AOH talks to artist Idil Bozkurt about her project: New Grounds

AOH: Hello Idil, we’d love to hear about your new project with a group of emerging artists, called New Grounds. Can you tell us about the artists who will be taking part, what kinds of media they work in and how you selected them?

Featured image: New Grounds Logo. Photo: Joshua Redfearn  

IB: There are a group of 11 up-and-coming artists invited by us to be part of the project this May within the AOH 2018. The artists come from various fields including illustration, mixed media, experimental sound and equipment design, photography, film, performance and digital media.

Here we are:

Idil Bozkurt Lens-based Media/Digital Media/Installation >> http://www.icimage.me

Joshua Redfearn Photography/Printing   >>http://cargocollective.com/joshuadylanredfearn

Jordan Chandler Performance/ Theatremaker-JOTDOWN >> https://www.jordanchandler.co.uk

Rebeca Gutierrez Fickling Photography >> http://www.rebecagutierrez.net

Jo Dressler Photography/ Illustration >> https://jodressler.wordpress.com

Más Hangok Experimental Sound Collective by Guoda Dirzyte and Maja Mihalik >> https://www.guodadirzyte.com / http://www.graesound.com/about/

Ed Briggs Musical instruments and sound design >> https://twitter.com/sggirbde

Daniel Levin Performance/ Storytelling

Ashen Page Film >> http://ashen.co

Willow Ritchie VR art/ Illustration

Jana Silva Page Painting/ Illustration >>https://www.facebook.com/janapageart/

Illustration: Willow Ritchie

AOH: Could you tell us about the ideas behind the project and why it’s called New Grounds?

IB: New Grounds is a project to support independent artists, and it offers emerging artists the opportunity to showcase their work within an art festival, the AOH. The project aims to provide a dynamic platform for the creative talents, celebrate and vitalise these talents to be discovered by the wider audience.

Photo: Rebeca Gutierrez Fickling

New Grounds suggests an emergence, a curious exploration and a discovery; the contradiction of the ‘new’. It also suggests a maker who explores the unexplored, a ground-breaker who discovers the contemporary, and a tenderfoot who is grounding into intangible platforms.  

Also, the name of the project comes from the idea that everything has its own foundation, base or ground to build onto – like houses, where the house becomes the foundation of a family and, through this, the sense of a community. As part of the AOH, this very private environment opens for the public sphere to share, to communicate with the common language of art. The projects aims to explore the ‘new’ grounds from each individual and unique perspective and creativity.

 

Photo from the live performance by Más Hangok at Komedia, Brighton (2016)

AOH: So where and when will we be able to see these artists’ work?

IB: New Grounds artists’ work will be shown in three separate places:

Cafe Plenty, in Circus Parade, will host some incredible print-based works from the 7th – 31st May.

New Grounds will be having all-day-all-night installation and performance at Gallery Lock In,  Little Western Street, on the 20th of May only. Don’t miss out!

The Old Market will be opening their downstairs cloakroom area for New Grounds artists, showing projection and performance-based work from the 21st – 25th May. The time is TBC. Keep an eye on the online updates through our and the AOH’s social media accounts – and take a look at the regularly updated AOH Events page: https://aoh.org.uk/aoh_events/

Still from Ashen Page’s short film, Skin (2017)

AOH: Would you like to tell us something about your own work?

Photo: Idil Bozkurt

IB: I am working on an AR (augmented reality) project for AOH May festival. It’s mixed digital media project which combines photography and video art together. Recently, I’ve been reading and thinking about how the collective desire is shaped by the politics of dazzle. Also, I am interested in the dissemination of digital images and how this media is brought about and created by digital technologies. So, the question of ‘what is the connection with the image and the image holder?’ will be my main focus in this project.

I’ll be exhibiting my artwork with the installation at Gallery Lock In on the 20th of May, then AR-based framed work will be exhibited at Cafe Plenty during the last week of May. I’ll be sharing the space with Joshua Redfearn.

 Photo: Joshua Redfearn

AOH: Is there anything else you would like to tell us?
IB: If you’d like to learn more about the project or interested in being part of it, please get in touch with me here [email protected] or [email protected] 

You can follow us on twitter: @_newgrounds_

instagram: @_newgrounds_

And you can find information on the New Grounds project and exhibitions on the AOH website here: https://aoh.org.uk/trail/projects/

AOH: Thank you for talking to us Idil and very best wishes for the New Grounds exhibitions.

Thank you!

New Grounds 1

New Grounds 2

New Grounds 3