Under Construction

About

Under Construction is a site-specific work that has been developed over 10 months through visits, walks and drifts exploring the sonic environment of Thamesmead. With its unique brutalist architecture and canals Thamesmead straddles the post industrial landscape of the River Thames and South East London.

Kate Carr’s art is grounded within the speculative practice of field recording, the sonic exploration of the live, characteristic, and sometimes hidden sounds of an environment, be this the sounds within a body of water, the internal sounds of buildings, or the sounds deep within the earth.

Carr employs field recording within thoughtful, haunting and ambient musical compositions. These compositions often set out to blur the boundaries between instruments and  ‘found’ recorded sounds, exploring a complex and contradictory relationship between nature, place, identity and being.

Throughout the gallery space, Carr has constructed a constellation of sculptural forms that extend from the floor to the ceiling. Each form is drawn and defined by taut wires, cables, speakers, reels and tape.  Drone from Reel to Reel tape machines, recorded sounds of the earth, voices, buildings, water and air, overlap to produce a composition that is played out spatially and temporally in the gallery space.

Sonically, Thamesmead is a collage of social, political and environmental difference.  Under Construction is an attempt to respond too, and capture the lived experience, character and emotion of a place that is undergoing physical and social change.

As part of the exhibition, a limited edition vinyl record produced as part of the Under Construction project will be launched in Spring 2019 and available to purchase from TACO!

    Kate Carr has exhibited and performed Internationally. Her audio work has been broadcasted and presented on Radio 6, Late Junction and she has performed lives at International platforms such as MazerMuski Festival – Berlin, Sonorities - Belfast, Café OTO and the Horse Hospital - London and Norðanvindur sound art festival, Iceland. Her work has been shown at galleries including the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, Australia, the Kochi Muzaris Biennale – India, and Transition- Mken, Sweden. Her work has been released on labels including Rivertones (UK), Helen Scarsdale (USA), Galaverna (Italy), and Soft (France).  Kate Carr runs and owns the record label – Flaming Pines (UK). Her latest Album  The Thing Itself And Not The Myth was released in 2018.

TACO! (Thamesmead Arts and Culture Office) is an artist-led space in Thamesmead, South East London. TACO! invites artists research, develop and realise projects over a dedicated period of time alongside a public programme that includes exhibitions, events, discussions, workshops, screenings, publishing, and co-authored participatory projects with local people and groups. www.taco.org.uk