17 July — 22 July 2018

The final retreat of Syllabus III, entitled 'Breaking Up is Hard to Do', is hosted by Wysing Arts Centre. Please note that we have selected the artists for this year's Syllabus III programme.

Syllabus III artists Frederica Agbah, Chris Alton, Conor Baird, Ilker Cinarel, Phoebe Davies, Freya Dooley, Rose Gibbs, Jill McKnight, Ben Sanderson and Karis Upton return to Wysing for their final retreat, entited 'Breaking Up is Hard to Do'.

Thursday: It's Not You, It's Me

The group will install work in Wysing's gallery. In the evening Syllabus artist Phoebe Davies will lead a listening session exploring break ups.

Friday: We Need to Talk

The group will share and discuss new work with the partners in Wysing's gallery. They will be joined that evening by local curators and artists for a dinner in Wysing's reception.

Saturday: I've Met Someone Else

Artist Advisors Jesse Darling and Harold Offeh will lead a further closed crit session in the morning. This will be followed by a visit from ToMA (The Other MA), who will share work with the group and join for a BBQ in Wysing's farmhouse.

Sunday: We Can Still be Friends

In the morning, Syllabus artist Frederica Agbah will lead a workshop entitled 'Acceptance Commitment Therapy and Strategies for Getting Unstuck' aimed at sharing skills related to depression, anxiety and stress. In the afternoon, the group will be joind by artist Tai Shani for 'Getting Back Out There', a workshop looking at future projects.

Biographies

The Other MA (TOMA) is an alternative art education model set up in 2015 by practicing artist, Emma Edmondson, working in partnership with Metal. Designed to fit the everyday lives of contemporary artists TOMA is a response to the barriers that some face in accessing many traditional art MA models (work & family commitments, cost, geography).Ten students are selected each year by a panel of tutor mentors, previous artist participants and representatives from Metal. Once selected, TOMA artists directly steer the study programme (working with administrative support from Metal) choosing those who come to teach on it and the topics explored. TOMAartists also host public facing projects and exhibitions as part of their time on the course. TOMA is currently based at Metal in Southend.

Tai Shani’s multidisciplinary practice, comprising performance, film, photography and installation, revolves around experimental narrative texts. Shani creates violent, erotic and fantastical images told in a dense, floral language which re-imagines female otherness as a perfect totality, set in a world complete with cosmologies, myth and histories that negate patriarchy. These alternate between familiar narrative tropes and structures and theoretical prose in order to explore the construction of subjectivity, excess and affect and the epic as the ground for a post-patriarchal realism.

Tai Shani was born in London. Shani has presented her work extensively in the UK and abroad, recent exhibitions and commissions include, including Wysing Arts Centre (2017); Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2016); RADAR commission, Loughborough University, (2016), Serpentine Galleries (2016); Tate Britain (2016); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2015); Southbank Centre, London (2014-15); Arnolfini, Bristol (2013); Matt’s Gallery, London (2012) and FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais and Loop Festival, Barcelona (2011); The Barbican, London (2011); ICA, London (2011).

Reading List

Essential

Sesshu Foster, How is the Arist or Writer to Function (Survive and Produce) in the Community, Outside of Institutions?, Poetry Magazine, August 2017. Link here

Suggested

Sol Le Witt, "Letter to Eva Hesse", 9 September 1928. Link here 

Martin Herbert, Tell Them I Said No, Sternberg Press, 2016. 

Astrud Gilberto, "How Insensitive", 1965 on The Astrud Gilberto Album, link here

The White Pube & Shape Arts, “How To Get an Exhibition”, link here

See also responses to the above article: Sonia Boué, “The Art World is Social”, 5 July 2018, here and here.

Evan Ifekoya, Raisa Kabir, Raju Rage, Rudy Loewe, “Surviving Art School: An Artist of Colour Toolkit”, link here

Raju Rage, Under/Valued Energetic Economy, an exhibition at Jupiter Woods, 14–29 July, here 
See also: Documentation of the work in more of an avalanche, Wysing Arts Centre, here