BasementArtsProject | INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN OUR 10th ANNIVERSARY PROJECT
As you will know from previous posts in this thread, we have decided to celebrate 10 years of BasementArtsProject by inviting back the first ever artist to exhibit in our underground art space: Kimbal Quist Bumstead.
Much as it pains us, what began as a discussion about a project in the real-world, if possible, versus a virtual space project, if not, has become a definite plan for the virtual world due to ongoing restrictions. Whilst it is unfortunate that we cannot access the space in time for our 10th anniversary, we do have the great good fortune to be working with Kimbal, an artist who is as improvisational as he is technically adept.
Many of our discussions in previous weeks have been about the intervening 10 years as much as they have involved what this project will entail. Our discussions have also revolved around situationist ideas and strategies, phenomenological understandings of environment and our engagement with people as artists and individuals.
The Shard: A sliver of London light. Photo: Kimbal. Bumstead (2021)
What this has resulted in is a project that, whilst being 100% about BasementArtsProject, encourages people to do the opposite of what we would normally be asking you to do for a project here, that is: DON’T COME TO THE BASEMENT, GO AND DO SOMETHING ELSE. The remainder of our. conversation below sets out how this will work and will set the scene for how this participatory project will work, and will ultimately be driven by you . . .
Bruce Davies | March 2021
DECADE: A CONVERSATION WITH KIMBAL QUIST BUMSTEAD #4
Friday 5th March (part II)
10 years ago, the show I did at the basement focussed on the idea and physicality of the space itself - an art space in the basement of a home. At the start of the show there was a blank canvas. A scale model of the house and basement stood in the middle of the basement. A small iPod screen played a video of you guys sitting on the couch in your living room, with a recording of your voices proclaiming ‘this is our house’. When visitors arrived, they had their photo taken and voice recorded saying ‘I am in this house’. Throughout the show, photos were printed and hung around the model of the house and the voices were added to a soundtrack that played in the space.
This year, since it is now clear that we are not going to have a show physically in the space, I like the idea of doing something that still creates a link back to the space itself, without physically being there. I have a few ideas, although not 100% how it will materialise. One idea is to have a virtual mock up of the basement on Artsteps which becomes a repository for materials that are created throughout the course of the exhibition.
Additionally to revisiting the physical space of the basement, my project is also revisiting some of the concept behind that original work, particularly the idea of it being a participatory work that generates itself through the course of the month.
I would like to invite contributions from people for this work. Particularly in the form of drawings and audio. Since this is going to be an online thing, people are not limited by geographical location, so in principle, anyone anywhere in the world can come and take part. In a sense, I am proposing a kind of international mapping exercise, involving local journeys. I am interested in how people experience their own surroundings, and how they might capture particular details with drawings and sound. I plan to design a ‘map’ that people can use to navigate a local journey. This is still very much a work in progress, but at the core of it, I am interested in capturing subjectivities and seeing how drawing can be a way to connect with and express connections with places.
My idea is that at the start of the event, the basement will be empty, and by the end of it, it will be filled with drawings. Uploaded on the virtual basement.
I had been pursuing the idea of using Augmented Reality, but I have since abandoned the idea because I feel that I (and we all) spend way too much time in front of a screen. So I am taking a more lo-fi approach, encouraging people to go outside with a pad of paper to draw rather than using their phones.
This Is Our House (2011) Installation. Film of the family playing on the couch, on an I-phone fixed to the wall of the scale model of the house based on the location of the actual couch in the real house. Photo: Kimbal Bumstead
Kimbal Bumstead
Kimbal Quist Bumstead (b.1986) is an inter-disciplinary visual artist, who creates site and situation specific work exploring the state of being in-between. Through docu-narrative videos, photography and interactive performance installations, he reflects on how people construct ideas of ‘home’ through fantasy, memory and dreams.
Kimbal is a graduate of University of Leeds and the Academy of Fine Arts Krakow, Poland, and has an MA from Queen Mary University, London
WEBSITE: https://www.kimbalbumstead.com