About this Event
This conversation with Charlotte Hollinshead and Tom Di Maria will cover, the History of ActionSpace, working with Turner Prize winning artist Nnena Kalu, before and after effects of The Turner Prize on Nnena Kalu and ActionSpace, and the state of Artists with disabilities in the UK.
Charlotte Hollinshead is the Head of Artist Development at ActionSpace, and has worked with ActionSpace for 30 years. She has also led the ActionApace South London Studio and Studio Voltaire since 1999. She supports artists with complex disabilities in developing their individual art practice, and delivers an extensive range of commissions, residencies, projects, live events and exhibitions. Charlotte also devised and manages ActionSpaces innovative participatory, live art programme “Make It Live”.
Nnena Kalu has developed her artistic practice at ActionSpace’s studio in Studio Voltaire since 1999. Her practice is rooted in two-dimensional works, sculptures and installations. Through binding, layering and wrapping materials, Nnena explores space, scale and materiality with repetitive sculptural processes. Her installations often begin with multiple compact ‘cocoons’ or ‘boulders’ of textiles and paper tightly packed in cellophane and tape. Nnena’s energetic installations become an extension of her physical movements, focusing on an important relationship between the artist’s body and her sculptural forms.
Tom Di Maria Tom di Maria, is the founder and Director of Arts Access for All, predicated on his position as Director of Creative Growth Art Center for 25 years. There, he developed partnerships with museums, galleries and international design companies to help bring artists with disabilities fully into the contemporary art world. He speaks around the world about artists with disabilities and their relationship to both Outsider Art and contemporary culture.
This talk is being presented as a public component of the 7th Annual Creating Community Conference (CCC7) bringing together artists and professionals from progressive art studios across the United States and beyond. This annual event, a Creative Growth initiative launched in Oakland, CA in 2019, aims to foster dialogue and collaboration around the importance of inclusive creative spaces for artists with developmental disabilities and mental health differences.
This years conference is being locally organized and led by the Progressive Art Studio Collective (PASC), with support from the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, and Library Street Collective. National administration and strategic support is being provided by Creative Growth, in collaboration with the Progressive Art Studio Alliance (PASA).
Additional support for this talk is being provided by Wayne State University, Design Core and Michigan Arts and Cultural Council.
Event venue & nearby stays
Gretchen C. Valade Jazz Center, 4743 Cass Avenue, Detroit, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.