SCULPTURE AT Public Engagement Workshops programme

To mark the third instalment of ‘Sculpture at Bermondsey Square’, VITRINE and Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre will be hosting an afternoon of talks and discussion featuring the three commissioned artists with curators, open call judges and a panel of experts, exploring issues within public sculpture today. This will be a rare opportunity to acquire behind the scenes insight into a curated public sculpture commissioning project.

Introduction by Lucy Tomlins, co-director of Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre and Alys Williams, founding director of VITRINE. Artists commissioned for Sculpture at Bermondsey Square will present their work in conversation with experts in the field: Karen Tang will converse with Sacha Craddock; Edwin Burdis with Ellen Mara De Wachter; and Frances Richardson with Rachel Withers.

Panel Discussion: Sacha Craddock, Ellen Mara De Wachter and Rachel Withers. Chaired by Alys Williams. The panel dialogue will explore the project and the selection and commissioning process of public sculpture more generally. This discussion will also consider the value of such commissions in cities and for citizens, as well as for the artists’ practice and development. This will be followed with a dialogue on the ‘state of sculpture today’. Invited interlocutors will give their thoughts on key concerns surfaced over the course of the afternoon, after which the conversation will be opened out to the wider audience. Chaired by Marsha Bradfield.

Founded in 2013, Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre (PSC) is a London-based resource for the production of sculpture and critical thinking about three-dimensional practice more generally. PSC is dedicated to providing essential opportunities to practitioners in the UK and beyond. It enables the realisation of ambitious works by providing technical expertise to help sculptors hone their skills and advance their practice. PSC aspires to be an international centre for distinction in sculpture, a context where creativity can flourish and which supports artists and arts organisations alike.

http://www.pangaeasculptorscentre.com‍

About the Panel

Sacha Craddock is an independent art critic, writer & curator based in London. She studied painting at Central Saint Martins followed by a post-graduate painting degree at Chelsea School of Art before going on to write criticism for The Guardian and The Times. She is the active Chair of the board of New Contemporaries and Braziers International Workshop, and served as Chair of the New Contemporaries selection process for seventeen years. She co-founded ArtSchool Palestine and is a public art advisor for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Craddock has judged many art prizes, such as the Turner Prize in 1999 and the John Moores Painting Prize in 2008.

Ellen Mara De Wachter is an independent curator and writer based in London. After working at the British Museum and the Barbican Art Gallery, she was Curator at Zabludowicz Collection, London until 2013, when she left to work freelance. In 2013-15 she was Curator of Public Collection Development at the Contemporary Art Society, where she was responsible for CAS’s acquisitions scheme for museums across the UK. Her writing has been published in exhibition catalogues and magazines including Frieze, Artforum.com and Flash Art. She is a Visiting Lecturer in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London.

Rachel Withers holds degrees in Fine Art and Critical Studies, and the History of European Art and Architecture. Since the late 1990s she has been a frequent contributor to Artforum International. She has also written for the Guardian, the New Statesman, Nu: the Nordic Art Review, and the Nordic daily Aftonbladet and contributed to the first Tate Modern Handbook, Phaidon’s Vitamin P and Vitamin 3D survey volumes, and assorted catalogues of the Venice and Sydney bienniales (2002, 2005 and 2011). She has served on the juries of the Jerwood Sculpture Prize (2003), the Max Mara Art Prize for Women (2009-10) and the 2014 International Awards for Art Criticism. She is Secretary of the UK branch of AICA (the Association of International Critics of Art). She is presently Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Art and Design at Bath School of Art and Design, Bath Spa University, U.K.

Generously funded by Arts Council England, the National Lottery Fund, Ideas Tap, and Bermondsey Square Community Fund.

With further support from Team London Bridge, Contemporary Arts Society, and Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre.

Media Partner: ArtReview and Elephant Magazine.