The British Museum has an incredible collection that is open to the public. As there is only so much space to show everything, there are a lot of works archived away. You can still, however, access them. Which is what we did recently.
The British Museum Prints and Drawing Collection is a wonder and we were lucky to see drawing from the Asia collection from 1911, those pieces bought Vishwa to tears as they were so beautiful and held such mysticism to her. We saw drawings by some amazing female artists (Tess Jaray and Rachel Whiteread) and the piece Charlie wanted to take home the most was by Fred Sandbach.
Get to know SqW:Lab 2024 fellow – today we speak to Renée O’Drobinak
Where can you be found?
Usually amidst the South London hills, or charging about in Farringdon, central London.
Tell us about a creative action you have taken this week.
I made a convincing argument about curating my employer’s new shopfront through the lens of relational aesthetics; it encouraged our leadership to think about how the brand ‘performs’ the business’ values.
What does ‘home’ mean to you?
It’s in Japan. I can probably hear a barrage of tripe gurgling out of Japanese daytime TV, and I can smell mom’s miso soup. Or alternatively, it’s the cold wooden hallway of my grandparents’ house. That annoying clock that bongs every hour is doing its thing again.
What was the last thing you cooked?
A vegetable tray bake with mozzarella and cheddar. It was desperately mediocre – it needed more cheese.
Tell us about 2 of your most subtle influences.
I have an American grandmother who I sadly lost recently. We couldn’t be more different – she, a Southern belle, a mother of five and a pro-life activist who was loved by all. Me, a decidedly child-free, pro-choice mongrel from the Far East and essentially a Marmite jar of a human being. But there’s a particular ‘mom voice’ that I do when I’m essentially scolding someone and trying to sound friendly at the same time. I sound like a facsimile of my grandmother. That’s one.
The second one is the humble zakka-ya. It’s a Japanese term for a particularly Asian breed of lifestyle shops, but it’s more akin to a knick-knack shop than a Conran shop. Think cheap Japandi design and pragmatic household items. I feel like its aesthetic influence – and a sense that nice things should be accessible – never escaped me.
Please share your thoughts / a few words about your expectations of the project.
I’ve had three lives as an inadvertent publicist. Firstly as an engagement-led contemporary performance artist. Secondly as a comms lead for a number of architecture practices. And thirdly, as a hyper-niche social media act as a sort-of batch-cook guru. You can say I’ve spent a considerable chunk of my life talking.
It’s going to be inevitable that my contribution to the fellowship will involve some form of publicity: either in the more commercial sense of the term, or its many subversive cousins. Likely a bit of both.
So I spend a lot of time thinking about people and their environment. It’s to be expected when, arguably, my only respite from architecture and the people working in it is my commute and the toilet (I work for architects and I married an architect). My biggest gripe in my architecture comms career is the accepted culture of how buildings and places are talked about. Much like contemporary art, it’s largely incomprehensible to the uninitiated, reeks of arrogance and has a dogged reluctance to open up its otherwise rich discourse to a wider range of people. Not sure what I mean? Google ‘arty bollocks generator’.
I sense this is starting to change, much like how our ideas about ‘who is a given place for, and who is invited’ are changing. Just think of the Edward Colston statue’s new Bristolian home.
Strangely, in the middle of all of this is food. My husband is passionate about food, and he led me into a rabbit hole of expanding my cooking repertoire into global cuisines that I previously never dared to try. A language of our married life, if you will. It’s also a bridge. Food is one of the few vehicles in which I can connect with disparate family members from abroad who I would otherwise struggle to relate with. It’s a language of its own. Cooking used to be a time-sucking chore for me. Now it’s a part of my vocabulary.
Consider, then, where we’ll be – Mumbai. From a cursory look, a vibrant city with discernible colonial influences within its buildings. A cuisine which I’m sure I’ve had many a bastardised incarnation of, considering where I live. A place where I speak the language, but also don’t. All within a country I’ve never had a chance to visit. My father has been on business a few times. He had some interesting stories to tell.
I’m sure there will be a lot of conversation – through all of these mediums.
Get to know SqW:Lab 2024 fellow – today we speak to Avijit Mukul Kishore
Where can you be found?
Mumbai, India
Tell us about a creative action you have taken this week.
Consumed good art and food at the Kochi Muziris Biennale.
What does ‘home’ mean to you?
‘Home’ is where I can happily perform versions of me, even to myself.
What was the last thing you cooked?
Soup!
Tell us about 2 of your most subtle influences.
Bach and good weather.
Please share your thoughts / a few words about your expectations of the project.
Rohan and I share interests in the city, home, lived spaces, citizenship, identity, image-making, cinema and pedagogy above all. I would expect produce art that is conceptually and formally beyond the confines of a two-dimensional plane and linear temporality. I would expect it to be reflective of our concerns, playful, subversive, immersive and experiential for the viewers.
Get to know SqW:Lab 2024 fellow – today we speak to artist Hannes Schüpbach
Where can you be found?
Winterthur
Tell us about a creative action you have taken this week.
I read poetry by Joël-Claude Meffre and Werner von Mutzenbecher for an audience at 26. Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, playing words and images into their minds.
What does ‘home’ mean to you?
All that is memory and the views out of my window. The large forest near the house where I live. The voices of people I know.
What was the last thing you cooked?
Risotto allo Zafferano; string beans; fish (Coregonus wartmanni) from Lake Constanz.
Tell us about 2 of your most subtle influences.
Morton Feldman; Modern Dance; sunlight.
Please share your thoughts / a few words about your expectations of the project.
The keyword that brought me to accept an invitation to SqW:Lab is “play”. Knowing that arriving in a place I have never been to means a sudden immersion into a wealth of sensations and subsequent inner resonance, I expect to listen and to be impressed by what is there. From there, some forms may emerge.
Get to know SqW:Lab 2024 fellow – today we speak to artist and academic Jessica Del Vecchio
Where can you be found?
On my email.
Tell us about a creative action you have taken this week.
Edited a chapter of my book.
What does ‘home’ mean to you?
This is a hard question given that I am currently packing up my house and moving to temporary housing in another state. Home is wherever I am deeply connected to the people around me and they to me. Home is a feeling of being at ease, of being fully myself. Home is a system of support, a place where I can show vulnerability without fear of judgment.
What was the last thing you cooked?
Hot cocoa from scratch for me and my nine-year-old.
Tell us about 2 of your most subtle influences.
Patti Smith; Anne Sexton
Please share your thoughts / a few words about your expectations of the project.
As someone whose work in the academy often leaves little time or energy for my creative pursuits, I am looking forward to the space (both physical and mental) to focus on my artistic identities. I expect ten days of intense exploration, inspiration, and collaboration. I hope that the openness of the fellowship’s structure will allow me to bridge my many areas of interest—queer and feminist theories, media studies, singing and songwriting, experimental art, and devised performance, to name a few. I anticipate that experiencing Mumbai for the first time will offer new perspectives that will influence my work and that I will return home reinvigorated as both an artist and person.
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