WATCHSPACE - Spaces symposium

Spaces, in partnership with Parabola, presented a one-day symposium for artists, commissioners and arts organisations exploring commissioning, context and site specific art. Using Tatton Park Biennial as one type of commissioning we intended to explore the range of approaches.

Speakers

Charles Quick artist, Reader in Art in Public Places at the University of Central Lancashire and instigator of 'in certain places' Preston. He interrogated the different contexts for commissioning, including both the arts world and public/private sector driven commissions. Charles has been involved from the start in a major regeneration project in Preston. www.incertainplaces.org

Patricia MacKinnon Day artist, Reader in Environmental Art at Liverpool John Moores University spoke about her approach to context through examples of site specific projects, both temporary and permanent. Past projects include a year long Sci-Art residency at Wysing Arts and Cambridge University; shipyard residency at Cammell Lairds Merseyside; three months in a disused textile warehouse in Nottingham; a project involving asylum seekers living in high rise flats at Sighthill in Glasgow and St Catherine's Almshouses, a historical site in Exeter. www.mackinnon-day.com

Jacqueline McCormick artistic director of Cheshire Dance and practicing artist - presented the forthcoming site specific dance commission for Crewe Station, as part of the Year of the Gardens, with international company BodyCartography www.cheshiredance.org/station.html

Gayle Chong Kwan artist. Much of Gayle's practice involves working with special interest groups to develop photographic mis en scenes. Employing a large format camera, food and a keen interest in historicism and globalisation, Chong Kwan's works are held by a number of large collections and she has been commissioned by Platform for Art to develop a large series of works investigating mythical landscapes. www.tattonparkbiennial.org

A Plenary session with all the speakers; Parabola, curators of Tatton Park Biennial, and Spaces programmers: Carmel Clapson and Cathy Newbery.

The day ended with a guided tour of Tatton Park Biennial by Parabola.