Jadene Imbusch | Pitched
Pitched Exhibition Preview
PREVIEW
Saturday 10th August | 12am - 5pm
Exhibition Open
Sunday 25th August| 2pm - 4pm
Thursday 29th August | 11am - 2pm
Sunday 1st September| 2pm - 4pm
Monday 2nd September | 11am - 2pm
Thursday 5th September | 11am - 2pm
Sunday 8th September | 2pm - 4pm
Monday 9th September | 11am - 2pm
Thursday 12th September | 11am - 2pm
Sunday 15th September | 2pm - 4pm
Monday 16th September | 11am - 2pm
Thursday 19th September | 11am - 2pm
Sunday 22nd September | 2pm - 4pm
Monday 23rd September | 11am - 2pm
Thursday 26th September | 11am - 2pm
Sunday 29th September | 2pm - 4pm
Lunchtime Conversation: Phill Hopkins & Jadene Imbusch
Thursday 12th September | 12pm - 3pm
Collaborations On The Corner
An Interview . . .
The following interview is taking place by e-mail and will be updated with each response over the course of the Index Festival and On The Corner. . .
BD. Jadene, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you are doing at the moment?
JI. So I’m a student originally from Leeds, but I’m about to go back to Loughborough university, to complete the final year of my Fine Art degree. I’ve taken a break from student life, and have been living back at home in Leeds for a year. In my year out I wanted to experience work places that I hadn’t previously had a chance to get involved with, and to gain knowledge in other creative sectors, to consider other pathways post degree as a potential career. Up until recently I have been volunteering at Bradford science and media museum. I got the chance to work in their archive and collections care department, learning about conservation and repackaging, which was an exciting way to get involved with collections I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to view and handle.
I contacted BasementArtsProject around autumn last year, asking if I could get involved in any way and luckily enough I was asked if I’d like to be part of their upcoming ‘On The Corner’ exhibition of summer 2019. With BasementArtsProject being located in Beeston I feel honoured to have my debut exhibition to be held in a place I call home.
The work I’m doing at the moment for the exhibition, is a sort of response to ideas of home, and the changes that I have seen within Leeds, particularly Beeston, since being back here. Being in the ‘Loughborough bubble’ for three consecutive years, has opened my eyes to the changes that have been occurring in Beeston and Leeds without me realising. The increasing amount of homelessness Myself and the community have witnessed, has been horrifyingly shocking. I noticed so many tents being used for shelter, and as a safe haven for the homeless. Shocked by the vast number of homeless people I have seen, I want to respond by making work that highlights these issues. My attention is drawn to the tents and what lies within them, imagining and fabricating what goes on inside, and relating these subjects to notions of nostalgia and child like qualities. You can expect to see juxtaposing themes, colourful sculptures, drawings and prints, collaged alongside gritty quotes & imagery.
BD. As a child did you go through the process of building dens and if you did, can you remember what kind of things you felt like you wanted to achieve by doing it?
Yes, I was always building dens with friends and family, all had different intentions, purpose and structures. I’d often build dens with one of my cousins where we intended to scare her friend/neighbour he was a bit younger than us and quite sensitive. Our favourite time of the year was Halloween, so we would try and make what we called ‘ghost trains’. we would use all sorts of textiles and objects including; towels, blankets, pegs, bed sheets, dressing gowns, anything we could get our hands on, along with Halloween decorations and a spooky Halloween cd my auntie had. We tried to be scary with the decoration and sounds, so one of us would guide her neighbour around, whilst another would jump out and scare him throughout the dark tunnel. It may not seem like a ‘conventional’ version of a den but the act of making the structure was what was important, it had to be dark and it had to be scary, and I think we were successful.
An interesting notion I’ve gathered from my reflection upon the idea of building, making and questioning what is a dens, tents and homes? Is that from my first experiences at nursery my school reports say that I could often be found in the ‘home corner’ which included small kitchens, bedrooms and living areas, so its interesting to me that from a very young age I was already practicing home making, without realising it wasn’t just play time.
I did have other den making experiences throughout my childhood, that may be considered more of a conventional den. These were experienced with another cousin, he had a Wendy House in his bedroom, where we would often stuff it with blankets and quilts, as the house his family lived in at the time, was a cold terraced house in Beeston up for demolition in the following months. It was often too cold to stay in a bed on our own so we would just huddle together in the Wendy house, exchanging body heat. We’d drink hot chocolate, and probably talked about playing game cube. I suppose it was a ready-made den, we didn’t have to build or make, but we might cover the windows to keep heat in. It was the best way for us to stay warmest, and that was the intention we wanted it to have. Not to play, but to have a small cosy place, in his bedroom, in his home
JI. Looking at some of the images of your work that you sent me back when you first contacted me, do you think there is a perception of what kind of place south Leeds is to those who do not live in it?
I think there is yeah, I went to a girls school in East Leeds and when people found out I was from Beeston I would often get asked; is that where the Beeston bombers were? Or it was known at the time to be a community of South Asian, often misunderstood by white British citizens. For me it didn’t really bother me, because I was brought up in a multicultural area, and I realised anyone of a different race wasn’t to be feared,as I never encountered any issues in my area, it was just a preconception people assumed it was like. The older I’ve become I realised it doesn’t define me, there’s more to me than which area of Leeds I come from, and I’m pretty lucky because regardless of the way the place looks or is perceived for me it’s a place I call home and I enjoy the fact my family all live in close vicinity to one another and so many people I know don’t have that privilege. That’s not to say there are things that I don’t enjoy about living here, it’s not a visually appealing place and I know that there are some terrible people lurking the streets but I’m sure there are in most places, there’s people in poverty and that’s upsetting to witness daily but hopefully some changes will be made in the future as south Leeds isn’t all as bad as it seems.
More to come . . . .
