About
Making Ships in Bottles explores the process of gathering research and the manipulation of information. It is interested in the ways artists display their work and the methods they each use.
With research obtained from varied sources; libraries, internet, newspapers or lived experiences; each artist merges often obscure or radical ideas and movements from the past within the present. Using a museum-like aesthetic, documentary techniques or design formats they scrutinize different approaches to forms of communication. Bureaucratic procedures, belief systems or site specific investigations are researched and revised but the artists rarely conclude any raised issues for the viewer.
Secondary and tertiary sources play with fiction and narratives, often with wry humour or a questioning of the impossible. In doing so the work sets out to challenge and highlight alternative political or social perspectives and makes us reflect on the present.
Biographical material about the artists and the curator:
Born in Manchester in 1981, Rebecca Lennon is currently based in London, where she is completing her MFA at the Slade school of Art. Selected exhibitions include Spasticus Artisticus, curated by Jota Castro and Christian Viveres Faune, Liverpool, Art Rotterdam, exhibition designed by Bedwyr Williams & The Economy, Afoundation, Liverpool, 2010; Free Trade, curated by Salford Restoration Office, International 3, Manchester, 2009; Future50, PSL, Leeds & Since they got rid of Time, Metro Galerie, Berlin, 2008. She is represented by Ceri Hand, Liverpool where she has her first solo show with the gallery in October, during this years Liverpool Biennial.
Gail Pickering is based in London, recent exhibitions, performances and screenings include in GSK Contemporary, Royal Academy of Arts, London; Black Swans.. Baltic Triennial, Vilnius; Happy Hypocrite Festival, Whitechapel Art Gallery, all 2009; Brutalist Premolition, Arnolfini, Bristol; Nought to Sixty, ICA, London; Mad Masters, South London Gallery; Gail Pickering, Gasworks, London; Here We Dance, Tate Modern, London; Peur Et Desire, Palais De Tokyo, Paris; Neither Either Nor Or, Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany all 2008.
Olivia Plender lives in Berlin. She has exhibited internationally, in exhibitions including Aadieu, Adieu Apa (Goodbye Goodbye Father), Gasworks Gallery, London; Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009, Tate Britain; The Greenroom, Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard, New York, (2008); The Great Transformation, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2008); Not Quite How I Remember It, The Power Plant, Toronto, (2008); Information, Education, Entertainment, Marabou Parken Annex, Stockholm (2007). Her graphic novel A Stellar Key to the Summerland was published by Bookworks in 2007.
Bik Van der Pol live and work in Rotterdam. They showed their work in Western Front (Vancouver); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam), 2010; CCA Glasgow; Lyon Bienniale; Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge; One Day Sculpture, Auckland; Pumphouse Gallery, London (2009); I've got something in my eye, Marie Louise Hessel Museum/CCS Bard, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Becoming Dutch, Van AbbeMuseum, Eindhoven; Plug In, Van AbbeMuseum, Eindhoven; For Reasons of State, ISP Whitney, New York; Utopia Transfer, Kiscelli Museum, Budapest (2008); Istanbul Biennale Models For Tomorrow, European Kunsthalle, Cologne; Moscow Biennale, Temporary Measures, Associates, London (2007); IAS, Issuefighters, INSA Art Space, Seoul. Workshopproject and publication (entitled +82, appeared feb.2007)*, Fly Me To The Moon, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Naked Life, MOCA, Taipei (2006); Secession, Vienna; Ford Boxes , Cork Caucus Cork (2005); Nomads in Residence/No.19, a mobile workspace for artists, Utrecht (2003, with Korteknie Stuhlmacher architects). Part of their practice includes publishing books, such as for example Catching Some Air (2002), With Love From The Kichen (2005), the ongoing serie Past Imperfect (2005, 2007), Fly Me To The Moon (2006) and The Lost Moment (2007. They curated Neverodoreven for the Piet Zwart institute in Rotterdam (where Liesbeth Bik is also a tutor), I've got something in my eye, Marie Louise Hessel Museum/CCS Bard , and Married By Powers TENT/Frac Nord Pas Calais.
Suzanne Triester lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include: Annely Juda Fine Art, London; P.P.O.W, New York, USA; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; New Art Gallery, Walsall; Kunstverein Langenhagen, Germany; Skolská 28, Prague; Galerie Lorenz, Frankfurt, Germany; Alma Enterprises, London; Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV), Dortmund, Germany; The Jewish Museum, New York, USA; Le Plateau Art Center, FRAC Paris, Ile de France; Museum of Contemporary Art Bordeaux (CAPC), France; Temporary Kunsthalle, Berlin, Germany. Recent publications include: HEXEN 2039 new military-occult technologies for psychological warfare, Black Dog Publishing, London, 2006; NATO The Military Codification System for the Ordering of Everything in the World, Black Dog Publishing, London, 2008.
Claire Shallcross lives and works in Glasgow. Projects include Petanque a monthly discussion/meeting group. Director of Volume, London (2009-2010). Extend your Neck (2007) Cafe Gallery Projects; Romantic Detachment (2005) Chapter Arts, Cardiff; The Big Screen (2004) Birmingham and was commissioned for As if something once mentioned now plain to see (2007) Colony Publication.
