BasementArtsProject

Slit: A Brave New World

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived, or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”

— Hunter S Thompson: The Proud Highway

Thursday 22nd September saw the opening of a new exhibition at BasementArtsProject. Fourteen months after the post-lockdown reopening, ‘Have You Left Yet?’ is the first exhibition that is totally post-lockdown and not related to the delayed 2020 programme.

If there is one thing that the pandemic lockdown has taught us, it is that many people thrive on interaction, community, collaboration and so many of those words that could be misconstrued as trendy buzzwords for the times. Yes, they are often used by organisations as trendy buzzwords, but you do not have to look too deeply to see the hollowness of the words and vacuity of the sentiments.

In reality though, away from the corporate world of slogans; interaction, community and collaboration are just three words out of many that describe the essence of what it means to be human, and in our humanity we learn and thrive. Art is a major factor in being able to do this. Life could be seen as a huge spider's web with each node representing a communal step in our development as humans, connected by the threads of creativity. A central point radiating out in all directions, capturing and devouring information via a lattice-work of collaborative and creative strands.

The removal of this creative spider’s web, separating the nodes into cells of isolation, has left the creative communities starved of the communion essential to their development, and in other areas of society literal starvation.

The opening of this new exhibition by Slit; an evolving collective of recent graduates from Leeds Arts University and University of Leeds, which in this iteration consists of Daniel Adkins, Julia Dudyczk, Georgie Holt, Clarke Lear and Johnny Winter, highlights the benefits and importance of community.

The participants in this exhibition not only come from two different educational establishments within the city, but from different levels of education; BA and MA, and different disciplines, not just Art but English too.

L-R Clarke Lear, Georgie Holt, Daniel Adkins, Jonny Winter. (Not pictured 5th member Julia Dudyczk)

Walking around the exhibition, anyone used to the usual conventions of the art gallery would notice that nothing is labelled; no artist names, no titles, no years, no materials, there is nothing textually that defines this as a group exhibition. Even online, images and texts are credited only to Slit. In this case the homogeneity of such a method of presentation is not stultifying but expansive and wide-ranging.

Works are presented in temporary structures such as chicken mesh, or in ad-hoc devices such the wooden clamps that hold the photographs rigid on the walls. The exhibition is punctuated with flowers in glass milk bottles, the type delivered to doorsteps, or a sprig of Gypsophilia hung amongst the monoprints; the gentle breeze of baby’s breath whispering amongst fragile paper works. Presentation as a form of poetry.

In this unconventional premise there is a freshness of spirit, the feeling that a new attitude is not just needed but possible and desirable. ‘Have You Left Yet?’ comes across as a unified and coherent whole. The process of putting the exhibition together, installing over two days, was a great thing to witness. Often but not aways, I find myself part of the installation process with artists, whereas in this case, the level of cooperation between the participants showed how quickly a group of people, fresh out of education, can develop and innovate to achieve their goals, completely independent of outside forces.

The opening night was a lively affair that drew a comment from one attendee, himself an educator:

“I had a lovely evening, we went to Basement Arts to be reminded that there are always brave young people willing to write and make art and put it out there”

This exhibition though is not just about students collaborating with each other. The offer extends to the viewer. In the rear exhibition space there is a desk and a chair; on the desk a typewriter and above it on the wall a noticeboard. The invitation is to add to the contributions, use the typewriter, create a poem, a haiku, a short piece of prose and add it to what is there.