Press Announcement: Focal Point Gallery's reopening plans and 2021 programme

Press Announcement:
Focal Point Gallery’s
reopening plans and 2021
programme

                                             Rosa-Johan Uddoh, Brown Paper Envelope Test, 2020

  We are delighted to announce Focal Point Gallery in Southend-on-Sea plans to
  reopen from 19 May with ‘Practice Makes Perfect’, the first solo institutional
  exhibition by Rosa-Johan Uddoh, and an outdoor public artwork by Mary
  Mattingly, ‘Vanishing Point’, a co-commission with Metal Southend as part of
  Estuary 2021.

  ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ explores the relationship between childhood education
  and how popular ideas of the British nation are formed. In particular, Rosa-Johan
  Uddoh explores the effects of black British popular culture on how individuals
  view themselves from an early age. ‘Vanishing Point’, an ambitious two-part
  installation, comprising of a learning centre located on Southend Pier, and a
  floating sculpture moored in nearby waters considers how the plant life of the
  Thames Estuary has evolved and responded to a changing climate over millions
  of years, and how this knowledge might be used as a prediction for a nearing
  future.

  We’re pleased to announce that Janette Parris has been commissioned to create
  a new site-specific work for FPG’s annual Bridge Commission, launching in July
  2021 and that local artist Emma Edmondson has been commissioned to create a
  public artwork, ‘Made from this Land’ in response to Southend’s rich brickfield
  history, which will be co-created with residents over the summer and launched
  this Autumn. Additional outdoor projects include the display of 39 banners

running the length of Southend High Street from April to October 2021,
presenting drawings, photographs, and text, by local residents on the theme of
‘Imagining a New Future’.

We are thrilled to announce a new year-long digital commissioning programme,
‘FPG Sounds’, supported by Arts Council England National Lottery Project
Grants, for fifteen artists to deliver new, high quality, innovative audio works,
including spoken word, music, prose, field recordings and experimental sound,
with skills development support, selected and mentored through partnerships with
local practitioners. Following our open call last year, we have commissioned
artists Jessica Ashman and Annabel Taylor-Munt have been commissioned to
create new works to launch on Big Screen Southend later this year. In addition,
we have awarded Ryan Christopher, Diane Edwards, Helga Fannon, Helen
Anna Flanagan, Katharine Fry, Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau, Sophie
Gresswell, Dan Guthrie, Maud Haya-Baviera, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Ruaidhri Ryan
and Jessie Russell-Donn the opportunity to screen current work throughout the
year.

From 11 September 2021, ‘Tip of the Iceberg’ will explore the intersection
between art and alternative growing practices. Whilst the scale of the ecological
crisis can seem overwhelming on a global scale, this group show explores how
individual and collective action can have local impact to tackle the structural and
environmental problems we face, whilst also connecting to international
initiatives. Local and international artists including Shaun C. Badham, Becky
Beasley, Zheng Bo, Kathrin Böhm, Graham Burnett, Gabriella Hirst with Warren
Harper, Anna Lukala, Mary Mattingly, Uriel Orlow, Rachel Pimm and Alida
Rodrigues present new and recent works that explore three key themes: the
notion of the ‘commons’ in relation to natural resources; how plants can be
considered as both witnesses and agents across history, and how local hidden
economies can act as catalysts for wider change.

From the 19 May, Focal Point Gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday from 11am
to 5pm and on Sunday from 11am to 4pm. We are based in the centre of
Southend-on-Sea at the ground floor of the town’s central library, The Forum,
approximately 50 minutes by train from London.

         Focal Point Gallery, Elmer Square, Southend-on-Sea, SS1 1NB
           +44 (0)1702 534108, focalpointgallery@southend.gov.uk

Full Programme Information

‘Practice Makes Perfect’
Rosa-Johan Uddoh
Solo exhibition at Focal Point Gallery
19 May to 29 August 2021

                                                          Rosa-Johan Uddoh, ‘Here I am, Baby’, 2020

    ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ explores the relationship between childhood education
    and how popular ideas of the British nation are formed. In particular, Rosa-Johan
    Uddoh explores the effects of black British popular culture on how individuals
    view themselves from an early age. Responding to the current debates about
    embedding black history within the National Curriculum and urban space,
    Uddoh has approached the creation of new work for this exhibition as
    therapeutic ‘wish fulfilment’ in a time of uncertainty in education and wider racial
    tension.

    During Autumn 2020, Uddoh worked with Year 8 pupils at Chase High School in
    Southend-on-Sea to create performance-to-camera videos, developed through a
    series of workshops exploring the content and format of Uddoh’s written work,
    WINDRUSH: A TONGUE TWISTER. Through this collaborative process, the
    wishes of the young participants around a diverse curriculum are expressed
    through a new artwork that investigates the importance of the school experience
    and the notion of ‘rehearsing’ to create a sense of identity. Similarly, Uddoh’s
    large-scale scrolls installed throughout the gallery encourage the audience to
    perform or insert meaning through their own experience.

    Another major new work by Uddoh celebrates the historical figure of Balthazar
    who was, according to tradition, one of the three biblical Magi and later Saint,
    who visited the infant Jesus after his birth to offer the gift of myrrh. Depicted since
    medieval times as a lone black figure in artistic imagery of the Nativity scene, this
    King is also one of the first performed encounters by school children with a black
    person of importance.

    ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ is Rosa-Johan Uddoh’s first institutional exhibition.
    Commissioned by Focal Point Gallery, ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ is presented in
    partnership with Bluecoat, Liverpool where the exhibition will be shown from 16
    October 2021 to 23 January 2022. With thanks to support from Southend-on-
    Sea Borough Council and Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grants.

‘Practice Makes Perfect’ is accompanied by a series of events and activities that
together attempt to broaden our understanding around the context and themes
presented in this exhibition. These include an essay by Lola Olufemi, exhibition
tours, free art activity packs for children and young people designed by artist
Meera Shakti Osborne and a series of panel discussions and lectures responding
to the importance of a black curriculum, media representation and the role of
Balthazar throughout the history of art.

In connection with this exhibition, Focal Point Gallery and Book Works are
pleased to launch ‘Practice Makes Perfect’, the first book by Rosa-Johan Uddoh,
in partnership with Bluecoat, Liverpool and The Bower, London later this year.
Designed by Rose Nordin, the book comprises a collection of scripts by Uddoh,
each aiming to disrupt how a particular character in popular culture performs
(and produces) black British identity. Presented as scripts, sheet music &
instructional worksheets, the reader is encouraged to insert their own experiences
and interpretations, in their head or through live performances of their own.
Selected texts from the book are exhibited as works on paper in this exhibition.

About the artist:
Rosa-Johan Uddoh (born 1993, Croydon), lives and works in London. Through
performance, film, installation and sound, Uddoh explores an infatuation with
places, objects and celebrities in British popular culture, and the effects of these
on self-formation. She is influenced by her architectural background, rooting
stories in specific spaces and materials.

Solo presentations include ‘Studies for Impartiality’, Jupiter Woods and ‘Sphinx at
the Crystal Palace’, Black Tower Projects (both in London, 2019). She has
participated in group shows including: ‘Learning by Doing: A politics of practice’,
68 Institute, Copenhagen, 2019; ‘Black Blossoms: If we are going to heal let it be
glorious’, The Royal Standard, Liverpool, 2017 and ‘Mene Mene Tekel Parsin’,
Cambridge, 2017. Recently she has screened work at East London Cable’s ‘TV
Dinners E03’ at Tate Modern, 2019; and performed at ‘Art in the Age of Black
Girl Magic’ Tate Britain, 2019 and ‘New Contemporaries’, South London Gallery
and Bluecoat, 2018. She was the 2020 Stuart Hall Library Resident

‘Vanishing Point’
Mary Mattingly
Outdoor Public artwork on
Southend Pier and Estuary
22 May to 13 June 2021
                                               Mary Mattingly, Artist’s Impression, ‘Vanishing Point’, 2020

   Focal Point Gallery and Metal are delighted to announce a public art commission
   by US artist Mary Mattingly as part of Estuary 2021. ‘Vanishing Point’, an
   ambitious two part installation, comprising of a learning centre located on
   Southend Pier, and a floating sculpture moored in nearby waters considers how
   the plant life of the Thames Estuary has evolved and responded to a changing
   climate over millions of years, and how this knowledge might be used as a
   prediction for a nearing future.

   While the earth currently supports approximately 415 parts of CO2 per million
   (the highest level recorded in human history), climate models predict that the
   concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere will reach one thousand parts per
   million before the end of this century if industrialised nations don’t reduce
   greenhouse gas emissions. One thousand parts per million would match the level
   of CO2 found in geologic records during the early Eocene in the Cenozoic Era,
   around 50 million years ago.

   ‘Vanishing Point’ revisits Southend’s plant life during this period; a learning centre
   on the Pier presents a place where visitors can discover more of the Estuary’s flora
   through time, as filled with plants that inhabited during the Eocene, as well as
   those still present today. Viewable from the Pier and Southend shore, a mysterious
   new inhabitant emerges from the Estuary mud, rising and falling with the tides. A
   sculpture depicting the Nipa palm, a plant familiar to these waters from the
   Eocene era retakes its place, supported by scaffolding as if being regrown to
   support the future of the Southend.

   Today, we can witness slow geologic time because the speed of change has
   increased so much that it can be recognised during a human’s lifetime. By
   studying the fossil records of plants that faced major climate changes in the past,
   we can help interpret similar processes occurring today, as our community
   imagines the regenerative fauna for tomorrow.

About the artist:
Mary Mattingly is a visual artist. She founded ‘Swale’, an edible landscape on a
barge in New York City to circumvent public land laws that make it illegal to pick
food on public land. ‘Swale’ co-created the “foodway”, a permanent edible
landscape in Concrete Plant Park, the Bronx in 2017. The “foodway” is the first
time New York City Parks is allowing people to publicly forage in over 100 years.
Mattingly is currently the Artist-in-Residence at the Brooklyn Public Library
building an ‘Ecotopian Library’. She recently completed a sculpture Pull with the
International Havana Biennial with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de la
Habana and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, currently at the Museum of
Contemporary Art Belgrade.

In 2018 she worked with BRIC Arts to build ‘What Happens After’ which involved
dismantling a military vehicle and deconstructing its mineral supply chain,
focusing on the mineral cobalt. Mattingly led a similar project at the Museum of
Modern Art. Her work has also been exhibited at Storm King, the International
Center of Photography, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Palais de Tokyo. It has
been included in books such as Whitechapel MIT Press Documents of
Contemporary Art series titled Nature, and Henry Sayre’s A World of Art,
published by Pearson Education Inc.

‘Vanishing Point’ is viewable from the Pier, a ten minute walk from Focal Point
Gallery at the end of Southend High Street. Southend Pier charges a small
walking entry fee of £2.00. ‘Vanishing Point’ is commissioned as part of Estuary
2021 through a partnership between Focal Point Gallery and Metal, with
additional funding from Essex 2020 and The National Lottery Community Fund,
and supported by local organisations The Old Waterworks and Grrrl Zine Fair.

‘Imagining a New Future’
Banners on Southend High Street
April to October 2021

                                                              ‘Imagining a New Future’, Southend
                                                              High Street Banners, 2021

   Imagining a New Future’ will now be exhibited on 39 banners along the thoroughfare of
   Southend High Street from April to October 2021. A joint project with Southend BID, the
   banners will present drawings, photos, and text, by local residents along with COVID
   safety messages. The project emerged after people of the town were invited to tell us
   about their activities or new experiences during the first lockdown in 2020, and to submit
   ideas for imagining a new positive future for Southend.

Janette Parris
Annual Bridge Commission
19 July to 25 October 2021
   We’re pleased to announce that Janette Parris will create new site-specific works
   for FPG’s annual Bridge Commission, 19 July to 25 October 2021. Parris will be
   responding to the unique location making new drawings that respond to the High
   Street and wider locality of Southend.

   About the artist:
   Janette Parris is an artist who investigates the contemporary urban experience,
   using narrative, humour and popular formats, including soap opera, stand-up
   comedy, musical theatre, cartoons, comics and animation. Parris has exhibited
   widely nationally and internationally for 25 years including Tate, The New Art
   Gallery Walsall, ICA, Kunsthaus Zürich, Hayward Gallery Touring, Art on the
   Underground, Royal Academy of Arts, was one of six lead contemporary artists
   selected for Museums at Night 2014, and whose work could be seen in the
   recent site specific exhibition ‘Everyday Heroes’ at the Southbank Centre. Parris is
   the founder of ‘Arch’ an established comic which was included in the largest UK
   comics exhibition in the British Library “Comics Unmasked”.

‘Made from this Land’
Emma Edmondson
Outdoor Public Artwork in
Southchurch, Southend
Launching in Autumn 2021

   Focal Point Gallery and Southend Borough Council are delighted to announce
   that local artist Emma Edmondson has been selected to develop a site-specific
   public art commission in Southchurch, to launch in September this year.

   On the deeds of many houses in Southchurch there is a covenant stating;
   residents are not allowed to make bricks or tiles from the clay underneath their
   feet, a seam nestled in the soil they walk on daily. Edmondson will be exploring
   the untold history of local brickfields to create a permanent artwork formed of the
   clay of Southchurch; setting out to change residents’ covenants, so that bricks,
   tiles, or the like, can be produced from their land. As a local resident,
   Edmondson became interested in these far-removed systems and rules and
   through this commission wants to start a conversation about agency, land
   ownership and our connections as humans to the land we live on. Collaboration,
   rather than extraction, is key and artworks made will find permanent sites in both
   residents’ houses and as part of the public artwork.

   About the artist:
   Emma Edmondson is an artist living and working in Southchurch. Studying and
   graduating during the 2008 financial crash and tuition fee rises, investigations
   into hierarchies, precarity and utopian community are at the centre of her
   research and practice. She uses sculpture, print and text, exploring her interests
   directly via her work in art education. In 2016 she set up TOMA (The Other MA),
   a postgraduate level art programme outside of the traditional institutional model
   created in response to the hierarchies surrounding access to higher
   education. Edmondson has shown her work in spaces around the UK including
   V&A Museum and Barbican, most recently with a solo show at Arcade/Campfa
   in Cardiff. She teaches art in community spaces, schools and universities often on
   precarious contracts. Emma sees TOMA and her teaching work as part of her
   creative practice.

FPG Sounds
Digital Commissions on Focal Point Gallery website
and other channels
Throughout 2021

   FPG Sounds is a new digital commissioning strand supported by Arts Council
   England National Lottery Project Grants, for artists and creative practitioners to
   deliver new, high quality, innovative audio works, including spoken word, music,
   prose, field recordings and experimental sound. The project will support
   Southend’s freelance supply chain in the production of works and new
   apprenticeship and placement positions. It will build on the strong traditions of
   Estuary sound, showcasing diverse emerging talent. The year-long programme
   will be 15 recordings with skills development support, selected and mentored
   through partnerships with local practitioners.

Big Screen Southend Open Call
Film commissions
and screening programmes
Throughout 2021
                                                     Annabel Taylor-Munt, 2021

   Following our open call last year, we’re pleased to announce that artists Jessica
   Ashman and Annabel Taylor-Munt have been selected to create newly
   commissioned works that will launch on Big Screen Southend later this year. In
   addition to this, we have awarded 12 artists the opportunity to screen current
   work throughout the year, including: Ryan Christopher, Diane Edwards, Helga
   Fannon, Helen Anna Flanagan, Katharine Fry, Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau,
   Sophie Gresswell, Dan Guthrie, Maud Haya-Baviera, Bob Bicknell-Knight,
   Ruaidhri Ryan, Jessie Russell-Donn.

‘Tip of the Iceberg’
Group exhibition at Focal Point
Gallery and Big Screen Southend
12 September 2021 to 9 January 2022
Launch 11 September

   Artists: Shaun C. Badham, Becky Beasley, Zheng Bo, Kathrin Böhm,
   Graham Burnett, Gabriella Hirst with Warren Harper, Anna Lukala, Mary
   Mattingly, Uriel Orlow, Rachel Pimm and Alida Rodrigues.

   Whilst the scale of the ecological crisis can seem overwhelming on a global
   scale, ‘Tip of the Iceberg’ explores how individual and collective action can have
   local impact to tackle the structural and environmental problems we face, whilst
   also connecting to other national and international initiatives. This project reveals
   the hidden economies that occupy the intersection between art and alternative
   growing practices, which are increasing coming together in pursuit of climate
   action and social justice. Southend is in the first 10% of UK towns to be flooded
   by rising sea levels, making climate action an imperative rather than an option.

   This group exhibition of local and international artists presented at Focal Point
   Gallery and on Big Screen Southend, includes new and recent works that
   explore three key themes: the notion of the ‘commons’ in relation to natural
   resources; how plants can be considered as both witnesses and agents across
   history, and how local hidden economies can act as catalysts for wider change.
   The exhibition title refers to the image of an iceberg as a visual metaphor, first
   used by feminist economist geographer J.K Gibson-Graham to explain the
   diversity of economic systems. They argue the most visible versions of economic
   exchange hover over forms of labour, gift economies, and non-monetary
   practices that sit outside of capital centric systems. In this context, the use of the
   diagram highlights how many environmental practices that are so important to
   sustainability sit below the ‘Tip of the Iceberg’. It also offers a nod to the
   precarity of which regions might survive in the event of sea-levels rising.

   Image Credit: Diverse Economies Iceberg by Community Economies Collective is licensed under a Creative
   Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License with special thanks to Kathrin Böhm

About Focal Point Gallery:
Focal Point Gallery (FPG) supports the production and presentation of new and
recent contemporary art that challenges us to think and feel differently about
locality, our sense of self and the importance of communities. Our wide-ranging
and pioneering artistic programme is relevant to local and national audiences
alike, through exploring current concerns that also resonate internationally. Based
in Southend-on-Sea on the Thames Estuary, FPG’s activities take place in locations
across the region with our reach extended by working collaboratively with
like-minded partners.

FPG is located on the ground floor of The Forum building in Elmer Square, 100
metres from Southend Central Station. (Trains are every fifteen minutes from
London Fenchurch Street, journey time fifty minutes.) As south Essex’s only public
funded gallery for contemporary art, FPG receives regular funding from Arts
Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation and is part of Southend-on-
Sea Borough Council from which it receives ongoing support.

Opening hours: Wednesday to Saturday 11.00am to 5.00pm,
Sunday 11.00am to 4.00pm

For further information, please contact laurabowen@southend.gov.uk
Tel: 01702534108

         Focal Point Gallery, Elmer Square, Southend-on-Sea, SS1 1NB
           +44 (0)1702 534108, focalpointgallery@southend.gov.uk