The first Clocktower Gallery/Island Studio Sessions project is with British artist Haroon Mirza. Mirza’s sculptures and installations are assembled from an eclectic inventory of objects, from found bits of furniture, electrical appliances and outmoded musical equipment. Networked into kinetic circuits, the abstract sounds created by his sculptural configurations coalesce into rhythmically driven compositions. An insistent compositional order underpins each of Mirza’s ensembles, an order which explores moments when social or cultural experience becomes aligned (or misaligned) with music and historical aural traditions.
You can listen to a short radio segment featuring the sounds of the machine here.
From February – March 2012 The Island will present Mirza as the latest in a series of co-produced residencies, exhibitions and broadcasts at the Clocktower Gallery and online at ARTonAIR.org. This ongoing project brings together artists who in various ways negotiate the space of transition between aural and visual modes of production and dissemination, investigating how music and noise function as a forms of cultural disruption, charged with the potential to collapse genre boundaries and subvert social and cultural institutions.
Mirza will be resident in one of the studio spaces at the Clocktower Gallery for 2 months creating a process-based work and series of events and broadcasts on ARTonAIR.org. The Island Studio Sessions: Haroon Mirza is curated by The Island (Andrew Bonacina and Victoria Brooks) and Alanna Heiss.
A playlist selected by Haroon Mirza provided exclusively to ARTonAIR.org can be heard here.
Haroon Mirza Live Streamcast from New York's Clocktower Gallery on ARTonAIR.org on Tuesday, 20 March, 2012 from 6 - 8 p.m. EDT New York (10 - 12 p.m. London, 3 - 5 p.m. Los Angeles).
Haroon Mirza (b. 1977, London) lives and works in London & Sheffield. Recent solo exhibitions include Spike Island, Bristol, UK (2012); Camden Arts Centre, London, UK; Lisson Gallery, London (both 2011). Recent group exhibitions include ILLUMInations, 54 Venice Biennale, Venice (2011); The British Art Show 7 (2010); The Sheffield Pavillion, 11th Istanbul Biennial (2009) and New Contemporaries, The A Foundation, Liverpool, London (2008). Mirza won the Silver Lion at 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and the 2010 Northern Art Prize.
The Island is a new non-profit initiative, founded and directed by Andrew Bonacina and Victoria Brooks, which functions as an itinerant cultural embassy for the visual arts. The Island has collaborated with over one hundred artists and collaborated with international partners such as British Council; Art International Radio, New York; Art Dubai Projects, UAE; International Project Space, Birmingham; Ashkal Alwan, Beirut; Darb 1718, Cairo; Vasl, Pakistan; ArtSchoolPalestine, Ramallah and Delfina Foundation, London.
The Island’s Clocktower Residency forms part of an ongoing collaboration between the two organisations, inaugurated in 2010 with a regular radio broadcast by The Island for AIR that presents on-site recordings of UK-based performance, music, talks, artist interviews and specially commissioned artist projects. View The Island segments archived in partnership with ARTonAIR.org here.
The next resident in The Island Studio Sessions will be UK-based artist Hannah Sawtell (April-May 2012).
More information can be found on project on The Island’s website: www,theislandarts.org
The Island Studio Sessions is supported by The British Council. With additional thanks to Stephen Kirk, Rachael Lawe and Harvey Somerfield.
Related Events:
The Open House made it possible to see the projects and meet the artists in our studios: Julie Covello aka DJ Shakey, Caroline Cox, Sabisha Friedberg, and Haroon Mirza, plus to take a tour through the Canyon Candy exhibition.
Listeners and visitors hear a live performance for the rhythmically driven abstract sounds created by Mirza's sculptural configuration of found objects, kinetic circuits, electrical gadgets, and optical components.
