Cell Project Space

A curatorial project by Milika Muritu and Richard Priestley

To launch a new season at Cell, the gallery will set out to defy the romantic myth of the autonomous artistic object and will invite all takers to step up onto the potters wheel to throw a pot. The viewer will become an active and physical participant within the performance and the overall installation. The project touches on ideas about 'actionism', although eschews heavy pathos by introducing play and collaboration. The curatorial point to the action and subsequent show is to open a dialogue around the artistic value imbued within the outcome by the skill of the maker, if the exhibition's existence is reliant upon the audience's interaction on the opening night. The title 'Easy Rider' evokes a notion of the rejection of social structure and confinement through its association with the '60's counter culture. For the period of each audience participant's time behind the wheel, they are empowered to adopt this rejection of the mainstream of being a viewer, and embrace the the alternative by becoming a creator. 

Central to the exhibition will be the potters wheel installed on a stage or platform, where individual members of the audience will throw pots. The gallery walls will house shelving / display units where the thrown pots are to be placed and exhibited as they are made. Gradually the audience will develop the installation via the evnt or social engagement. 

Artists drawings accompany this exhibition as diagramatic inspiration for the 'Easy Rider'

generously supported by The Arts Council of England