From the 8th until 21st September 2008 Amy Cunningham was part of a two-week project led by the UK-based artists’ collective SpRoUt (of which Amy is a key member).
The two-week project involved the SpRoUt collective working together and in collaboration with Zagreb-based artists and students on an evolving set structure exhibited within the SC Gallery and in specific sites within its vicinity. A series of installations, performances, screenings, workshops and reading groups, collectively explored the themes of staging and construction, the relation between past and future, and the relation between the individual and the group, and marked a key development in SpRoUt’s working methodology in relation to site-based activity and collective practice.
The history of the Student Centre, built for an international trade fair, is one of avant-garde activity and grassroots political struggle. It is now a hub for cultural activity in the city, serving not only the student population but also every other type of citizen interested in the cultural life of the region and beyond.
During the project Amy Cunningham made a new body of work titled ‘Functional Fairground’ using 8 mm film, video and voice and worked in collaboration with students from the Art and Music Academies, University of Zagreb, to form a vocal ensemble. Drawing upon the collective emotive response to the derelict French Pavilion adjacent to the SC Gallery in the Student Centre, Amy Cunningham focussed on this site for the development of a new film and vocal work, which builds upon her practical research concerning the relationship between nostalgia and visions of the future.
The French Pavilion was designed by civic engineer Bernard Lafaille in collaboration with Robert Camelot, Jacques and Paul Herbé, and was built by local Zagreb artisans and workers in 1937 for the world trade fair on the site of the famous ‘fairgrounds of Zagreb’. Working with the architectural drawings and the engineering details together with references to the European Avant Garde music contemporary to the age of the building, Amy Cunningham devised material for a vocal ensemble which alluded to Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone practice, whilst still shots of the disused pavilion provided a nostalgic view of the future from the perspective of the past.
The experiments with video and vocal ensemble were presented during the residency as part of the Under Construction public programme of events to which Zagreb-based artists, students, curators, academics, writers and public were invited. The material made during the residency will be developed into a film and presented as part of a publication based on the project, which is due to launch with support from ‘Guest Room’, London in 2009.
‘Under Construction: Staging the Future’ was supported by Arts Council Lottery fund, British Council and Networking Artists Networks. Amy Cunningham's residency was all also supported by University of Brighton.
A record of the events, which took place can be found
here.
More information about
SpRoUt.
Amy Cunningham is Senior Lecturer in Music and Visual Art, School of Arts & Communication.
