jen grant

2010-05-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

Site specific project in collaboration with Manchester's Blank Media Collective for 2011.
More details to follow...

2009-11-08T15:45:00.000-08:00

Totalitarianism creep’s on cat’s feet till it pounces for the kill. Then the shadowed spaces are the only place of refuge. They’re the only place of refuge… now for those parts of all of us, those parts of each of us, at whatever age, that can’t quite buy the current order.
Denis Wood

Intended as a small habitat in which individuals are able to seek refuge from their everyday surroundings, TENT is a positive intervention in the urban landscape. It was created from unwanted sheets, blankets, duvet covers and cloths which were sewn together and thrown over a lamp-post.

TENT creates a hidden space where one can reflect without the distractions of the everyday, or engage in activities that may not be socially acceptable. The subtlety and dreamlike aesthetic of the work accentuates this idea of a space within the city but functioning out-with it, the complete transformation, and yet at the same time, negation, of capitalist space.

2009-11-08T14:56:00.000-08:00

I was invited by Collective Gallery in Cockburn Street, Edinburgh to take part in New Work Scotland Programme 2009. The project, now in it's 10th year, aims to present an opportunity for recent graduates from Scottish art schools to create and exhibit new work.

I was asked by the gallery to create an off-site work, in a similar vein to the be good to them always series and so chose to locate the project in Craig's Close, one of the many alleyways cojoining the main streets of Edinburgh's old town.

2009-11-08T14:55:00.001-08:00

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2009-11-08T14:49:00.001-08:00

2009-11-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

Whitebikes was a project that attempted to encourage cycling by making the bike a shared commodity. Bikes were left on public ground for anyone to use. They were free and users accessed them by calling the telephone number secured to the frame to receive the lock combination. In this way the whereabouts of the bikes could be kept track of to aid the process of bringing them into the workshop for repairs and maintenance.

Three unwanted and homeless bikes were donated to the project by a community based bicycle programme, Becycle. The bicycles were fixed and painted white in admiration of the Provos - a Dutch political group of the 60s, one of whose aims was to abolish the car. Painting them white also emphasised the tarnished aesthetic the bikes developed with time, symbolising their journeys throughout the city.

The project was launched in November 2008, and was successful for around 10 weeks, however eventually the communication between the bicycle users and myself tailed off, and the bikes disappeared...

2009-11-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-08T07:48:00.001-08:00

I am at present working on a pair of public sculptural works to be installed one on either side of the entrance to a mixed housing project that includes the redevelopment of the Great Eastern Hotel on Duke Street, Glasgow.

The tentative completion date for this project is some time in 2010.

I am still at the early stages with this, and rough images will be forthcoming in the near future.

2009-11-08T07:45:00.001-08:00

I have been commissioned to design a sustainable playpark, to be situated within a planned social housing development in Kirkintilloch, Glasgow. The project is scheduled for completion in late 2010 and I am currently working through a number of ideas.

2009-11-08T03:44:00.001-08:00

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2009-11-08T03:39:00.000-08:00

SWING was created from discarded items of clothing collected from the back alleys and bin areas of tenements in Glasgow. The clothes were then laundered and dried, cut into strips, and woven together to fashion ropes, to which parts of chairs (also found on the streets) were attached to form swings. These were hung from the guardrails on the Botanic Gardens Bridge that crosses the river Kelvin and forms part of the busy Kelvin Walkway.

The clothes that were collected and used for this project were imbued with a personality and invoked very powerfully notions of the abject, each piece telling a story of sorts, albeit ambiguously, about its previous owners and their lives and experiences. The cutting and braiding together of these items seemed almost like weaving together small fragments of narratives from the lives of a myriad of unknown people, creating an object that at once juxtaposes these fragments while creating a new narrative of its own.

2009-11-08T03:38:00.002-08:00

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2009-11-08T03:23:00.000-08:00

The shimmer and obvious colour of HAMMOCK severely contrasts the environment it was designed for. The reflections of the jewels lit up the dark space, illuminating the forgotten and the abject, through a perhaps clichéd link. Both jewellery and hammocks connote notions of capitalist-fed luxury, wealth and relaxation. The shadowed spaces can also be seen, to a degree, to provide refuge, or perhaps in some ways, relaxation, for those living on the fringes of society. The subtle symbolism at play suggests an elevation from the degradation of everyday existence for the marginalised individual, via the surreal juxtaposition of the hammock suspended above the dirt and grime of its surroundings.

2009-11-08T03:22:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-07T13:52:00.000-08:00

There can be no freedom apart from activity, and within the spectacle all is banned.

Guy Debord

STILE was focused around a critique of street furnishings, and the ways in which they govern the movements and behaviours of people. Individuals are led towards some things, and away from others. STILE highlights the concept of restriction of movement in the urban environment by making use of unwanted furnishings found on the street, modified to fit between railings, in an effort to provide people with new possibilities in urban locomotion.

While working on the project, it became apparent that people on the street were stopping to look at these oddly assembled items of furniture. Fundamentally linked to the issue that STILE is addressing, is also the fact that many urban dwellers travel through the city in a closed mental state. They are guided by railings and fences, seeming to move around the city in an almost automated, closed fashion. The fact that the work seemed to be attracting the interest of passers by, might suggest that work of this nature also functions to encourage thought and surreptitiously make the viewer more aware, and more open to looking and seeing.

2009-11-07T13:51:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-07T13:48:00.000-08:00

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