A special thanks to all the collaborating artists and speakers: Lee Borthwick, Lee Dalby, Rebecca Lucraft, Benjamin Garcia Saxe and Sba Shaikh.
This project would not be possible without the guidance and support of Avid Art Agency, Bamboo Curtain Studio (Taiwan), Open Vizor and The Stephen Lawrence Gallery.
A talk and workshops will be held during February 2013 to accompany the exhibition. For up-to-date information and booking details please go to the gallery web pages on the South London Art Map:
http://www.southlondonartmap.com/galleries/stephen-lawrence-gallery
The project has been supported by Stephen Lawrence Gallery (University of Greenwich) and Open Vizor.
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The Baasher Ghor/ Bamboo House projects will be shown as part of the Stephen Lawrence Gallery‘s programme for the coming year.
This latest group exhibition runs from 21st January – 28th February 2013, will present research and archive gathered over the last year, with a focus on incubating ideas in the form of new artists and designers collaborations within the gallery space.
To accompany the exhibition we are looking for expert researchers and practitioners to give a lecture and carry out workshops involving the public. Please contact us or the gallery curator directly.
PARALLEL HORIZONS
Curated by Saif Osmani
An international research-based exhibition looking at the multiple ways in which bamboo has been abbreviated in a context of space, in place-making and within the process of establishing national boundaries. Each project explores cross-cultural interaction and linkages forged through material and spatial syntax, in the formation of cultural codes and future identities across borderlines.
Parallel Horizons stems from Baasher Ghor/ Bamboo House, an on-going collaborative platform which brings together 35 practitioners from four continents, including architects, artists, designers, sculptors, photographers and oral historians, with the aim of rediscovering stories and narratives misplaced through human migration and interpolation.
A talk and seminar will be scheduled during the exhibition.
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Through the Bamboo Wall by Saif Osmani
Photographs, Paintings and Testimonies
25th November – 16th December 2011
Showing at Winterbourne House, Coach House Gallery
By documenting the material exchanges that take place in everyday transitory spaces, we connect with those actions which have been taken place over centuries. The treatment of bamboo has paralleled the changes in human development; it has been carved, woven, joined, has shifting in form, increasing in mass and in recent times deceased in our collective psyche.
Through constant re-abbreviation bamboo has gained meaning, produced cultural symbolism and also retained its position as a silent signifier to the past whilst giving rise to a possibility of a future.
London- based visual artist and spatial designer, Saif Osmani presents his research on Taiwan’s regional response to bamboo whilst connecting the gallery space with the site-specific of Winterbourne House & Garden.
The artist recently returned from a residency in Taiwan (as part of Bamboo Curtain Studio’s Emerging Artist’s Programme), where he interviewed practitioners and recorded the places where he found bamboo within Taipei City, Chaiyi and Nantou.
In his search for lost crafts, untold narratives and missing linkages he began to formulate a language of Taiwan’s own material condition and how the inhabitants connect with their own urban sphere.
This exhibition includes over 100 photographs of markets scenes, religious rituals, street life, the region’s architecture and natural landscapes.
Inspired by Taiwanese native artistic forms, Saif has produced paintings from personal stories from his grandparents time in Bangladesh.
Oral testimonies are also presented alongside the photographs for cross-cultural reference and to contextualise the pictures.
Earlier this year Saif invited artists, architects, designers, photographers and oral historians to explore the cultural associations of bamboo from around the world. This came to form ‘Baasher Ghor’ (‘Bamboo House’ in Bengali), an information exchange and a platform for practitioners who primarily work with the material.
One of the artists he connected with, Birmingham-based artist Maria Zerguine, tells the story of growing up living in a bamboo house in the Phillippines with her grandmother which is a personal heart-warming and powerful untold story.
‘Through the Bamboo Wall’ is showing from 25th November- 16th December 2011 at The Coach House Gallery, Winterbourne House & Garden, University of Birmingham, 58 Edgbaston Park Road, Birmingham, B15 2RT
Opening times: Daily 10am – 4pm
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111 Scenes
30/07/11 – 04/08/11 (opening 30/7 at 15:00)
Showing at: Bamboo Curtain Studio, No.39, Lane 88, Sec. 2, Zhongzheng E. Rd., Danshui Dist., New Taipei City 251, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
Tel: +886 2 8809 3809, +886 2 28081465 E-mail: studio[at]bambooculture.com
111 Scenes
By documenting the material exchanges that take place in transitory spaces, in the exchanges and occurrences of daily life, we connect with those which have been taken place over centuries. Bamboo has materially adapted in parallel to human history, by being carved, woven, joined, shifting in form, increasing in mass, deceasing in our collective psyches; through re-abbreviation, gaining meaning and producing symbolism. Throughout this time is has retained its position as a silent signifier to the past and gives rise to a possibility of a future.
The concept of the ‘Baasher Ghor’ or ‘Bamboo House’ seeks to look beyond the means of a self-contained place with a fixed setting, or one singular view, it is instead an abode of many openings and entrances, of multiple frontages and enclosures. The house is still defined by its material essence with inexhaustible connections and still retains the ability to adapt alongside our changing human senses whilst still remaining at core, a house made of bamboo.
‘Baasher Ghor’ presents 35 projects from architects, designers, sculptors, photographers, oral historians and poets from four continents. Each respondent has looked at the material within a narrative in space, connecting it to a real or imaginary place or country of origin.
111個場景
在稍縱即逝的空間裡，日常交易與生活事件記錄著物質的交換，我們與這些行為相連結已經好幾個世紀。竹子質材的使用方式，與人類發展的歷史平行產生，從雕刻、編織、結合、外觀上的更換、大眾化使用，甚至在我們的集體心理中消失。透過重新縮寫，獲得意義和產生象徵意義，同時還保持著某種無聲的符號，有著通往過去和未來的可能性。
〝竹屋計畫〞所找尋的概念遠超出一個獨立〝房子〞本身的設置，或者是一個單一觀點，相反的，這個計畫是找尋一個居所可能具有的開放空間、入口，建築物的立面以及圍欄，這個〝竹屋〞顧名思義仍是以竹子為核心質材，並且保有竹子本身無限延伸的連結與適應人類演變的特質。
〝竹屋計畫〞展現來自四大洲，35位建築師、設計師、雕塑家、攝影師、口述歷史學者與詩人，回應了對於竹子的看法，如同對空間的描述，並與真實或者想像的空間/ 國家/區域相連接。
Yu-Chih Hsiao and students from Shih Chien University prepare to relocate ‘The Big Cradle on the Road’
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