1 - 17 April 2011

The Department of Wrong Answers gallery presentation by artists Rob Filby, Laure Prouvost & Francesco Pedraglio, Giles Round and Cally Spooner.  The artists developed new work in relation to the residency theme, part of The Institute of Beyond. More info on their residencies here.

Click on the image to see installation shots of the exhibition.

Laure Provoust and Francesco Pedraglio created a new video, billboard, signs and an installation within Wysing’s recycled building Amphis (renamed 'Jody’s ba'r). The works provided mesmerizing juxtapositions of images, text and sound with a clear focus on broken up narrative. All of the interconnected pieces arose from the artists’ short story The Lot that was available to read in the gallery on one of Giles Round’s furniture works. The short story humorously depicts a fictitious department’s desperate work environment; an obscure camp dedicated to search for unrecognizable objects and dig abstract ideas from muddy meadows.

Rob Filby created a new series of 'mood boards' depicting scenery or surface texture from around Wysing's site, alongside seemingly dispassionate and disconnected references to, among other things, lettuce, tongue, lichen and sausage casing. During the exhibition launch an interior designer from the nearby village of Cambourne was on hand to describe the mood boards to visitors. Two new sculptural counterparts that re-imagine the mood boards were also offered, presented on the furniture work of Giles Round.

Giles Round developed and presented a series of furniture made from materials found around Wysing’s site; drawing reference to the 60s nomadic self-build movement and the work of Gerrit Rietveld and Mies Van Der Rohe. Presented upon one table was a sculptural work loosely based on the erotic drawings of Bloomsbury painter Duncan Grant. Round’s furniture also performed as platforms to display works of fellow Department artists. The Department closed with a dinner, Wysing, an archeology, hosted by Round on Sunday 17 April from 7pm in which the furniture found a new use.

Cally Spooner writes in dialogue to perform absurd collisions of arguing characters, looping narratives, miscommunications, mis-readings and interruptions. Her new work, a filmed monologue, performed the crisis of acting out-loud, achieving excellence, and finding something useful to say, in public. The work entitled Piece For A Pending Performance (19 min) was installed in Wysing’s Open Studio. On Sunday 17 April 5.30-6pm Spooner transformed the studio into a theatre to rehearse a brand new production, which attempted to shift a recorded, ascetic monologue (for a rather emotional actress) into a live dialogue on public life, and good manners.