Meadow Arts and University of Worcester present some of the most exciting contemporary artists working in the UK, talking about their practice. This is the second year that the contemporary arts organisation and the university’s Fine Art department have worked together on the lecture series. Last year’s success means that the 2017 talks have been moved to award winning venue The Hive, in central Worcester.

8th February the series starts on with Dominic Allan, AKA ‘Dominic from Luton’, whose varied and innovative practice includes giving life eternal to taxidermied rats in bespoke sleeping bags (using AA Duracell batteries) and performing live in burnt-out wheelchairs as his own Father dressed as Margaret Thatcher or as, 80s pop star, Paul Young.

15th February Paula Kane investigates the many languages and fictions found in representational painting, referencing contemporary and popular sources to create fantastical imaginary landscape paintings. 

22nd February Stuart Whipps will talk about the multiple strands of his artistic practice, which uses video, photography, other materials and artefacts to query how documentation alters understanding of cultural values and contexts.

8th March Faye Claridge’s work looks at how our current and future identities are shaped by ideas about the past: Claridge created new work touching on folk art and the Industrial Revolution at Ironbridge Gorge Museums during her 2015 residency there for Meadow Arts’ Shifting Worlds exhibition, as well as a spectacular one off event, Weighty Friend, when the historic Iron Bridge was dressed in a ‘tatter coat’ of ribbons.

15th March Mariele Neudecker uses a range of media including drawing, sculpture, film, photography and sound. Investigating the way we metaphorically interpret representations of landscapes and understand the natural world around us, she reflects on the ‘contemporary sublime’. For the German-born artist, everything we see is filtered and experienced through our own subjective viewpoints and layers of cultural legacy; technology and science can both enable and limit our human perception. Neudecker’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the IKON Gallery, Birmingham and Tate Britain, London.

22nd March AJ Stockwell’s work often takes multiple forms, using objects, video, print and text to examine our contemporary relationship with artefacts, considering how we define ourselves through objects and materials and how we communicate through a shared 'material' culture, while Ben Owen pushes the use of film into new quarters, often working collaboratively. (Please note that this talk takes place at Garage Studios, Hylton Road, Worcester.)

29th March STUDIO MORISON founders Heather Peak and Ivan Morison have worked together as an artist duo, under the name Heather and Ivan Morison, since 2003, establishing an ambitious collaborative practice that transcends the divisions between art, architecture and theatre, exploring what it means to be an artist in the 21st century. Heather and Ivan Morison have been commissioned by Meadow Arts to make new work at The Hive in Worcester and at Weston Park, on the Shropshire-Staffordshire border, in 2017.

Talks take place on selected Wednesday evenings from 4:30pm to 6:30pm, including a chance to ask questions after each presentation. The talks are free and open to all, though booking is recommended for the public.

Visit www.meadowarts.org for more information about the artists. 

The Garage Open Lecture Series is a collaboration between the University of Worcester's School of Art's 'Fabrication Research Group' and Meadow Arts in partnership with Worcestershire County Council and Worcestershire Arts Partnership.