Q4 2022: The New Spaces Issue
In this issue of Scott & Co Quarterly, we look at ideas and visions that are now a reality post-pandemic: the new ventures, models, spaces – both physical or conceptual – where contemporary culture is taking root. Last week in Nigeria, Scott & Co launched Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, a non-profit dreamt up by renowned artist Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, which has been in the making since 2019. Coinciding with ART X Lagos, West Africa’s leading art fair, the foundation’s two new spaces for artist residencies opened their doors to international and local guests to witness a growing community of creative exchange. This week with COP27 underway in the African Continent, in Egypt, G.A.S. Foundation’s emphasis on making space for artists and environmentalists to meet and collaborate stands out.
While the first site is in the beating heart of the growing cultural hub of Lagos, and houses a library of more than 1,500 books on African art and culture, the second space offers a more unusual setting: it sits on a lush 54-acre working farm in the village of Ikise, two hours from the city, which grows crops from cassava and cashew to maize and peppers. G.A.S. Foundation’s Ecology Green Farm will create a space for dialogue and knowledge-sharing between creatives, as well as ecologists and agriculturalists, all in collaboration with local residents.
Wallpaper* reported on the sustainability of the new building ‘made with 40,000 handmade earth bricks’ by Nigerian architects MOE+ Art Architecture: ‘Solar panels installed across the roof, together with a waste-to-biogas system, will generate half the power required in the first five years, with a move to 100 per cent off-grid use beyond this period’.
What will happen when artists, ecologists and farmers put their heads together? We await with interest. One thing is for sure, this is part of a wave of new models opening new possibilities and discussions – we live in creatively ‘fertile’ times. “We should all be closer to nature,” Yinka Shonibare commented, as he reflected on the farm’s remote location. “It’s an excellent environment for artists to be inspired and work, and to have some quiet.”
See the website here and Instagram here.
The Digest People, Places & Ideas
“It represents the other, the queer in-between. The missing space.” Himali Singh Soin on her new exhibition, The Third Pole, at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, and its reference as both a physical space and a web of ideas. (i-D)
Raqs Media Collective are among the first residents at G.A.S Foundation, appointed as ‘weather reporters’ in partnership with The World Weather Network, an alliance of artists and writers creating “weather stations” across 28 different countries. James Lingwood, organiser and Artangel Associate Director, described the project as “taking different weather worlds and bringing them together…as an invitation to look and learn, then hopefully act.” (The Art Newspaper)
“We don’t always need to travel across the world to be inspired by places, we just have to look a bit more.” It’s Nice Thatand BBC Earth have launched ‘Rewilding Creativity’, a series of commissions imagining an environment where people and plants live in harmony. It seeks to ‘inspire audiences of people around the globe dedicating their lives for positive change’. (It’s Nice That)
“It was an idea: that his local chippy, the Grove Fish Bar in Ladbroke Grove, could become a philosophy symposium.” This year’s Frieze Artist Award winner, Abbas Zahedi, uses art as a portal, creating a safe space where his friends – fellow children of migrants – could discuss why they “felt out of sync with the rest of society”. (Financial Times)
What does healing mean to an artist’s practice? Artist Cassi Namoda answers this question in ‘Portals’, the latest episode of Shade Podcast. The series is all to the tune of Axel Kacoutié hypnotic soundscapes. You can listen here.
“The women of Iran are saying enough is enough. Keep your religion and ideology out of my body.” Artist Shirin Neshat on the women-led protests in Iran on FT Weekend podcast. You can listen here.
Meet 11 people who are shaping the future of travel in 2022 and beyond. From architects, conservationists, designers, hoteliers, to space pioneers, there is no shortage of inspiration from those changing the travel game. (Condé Nast Traveller)
“We work in a discipline that constantly pushes us to reconsider and redefine our own personal reality: through fantasy and irony, humour and whimsy, commentary and subtext.” Takashi Murakami talks about the artistic possibilities of digital spaces. (The New York Times)
“It’s not about saving polar bears or penguins any more. It’s about saving us.” Damien Gayle discusses whether vandalising art is an effective form of climate activism. (Guardian)
Ever wonder what a Degas or Dalí looks like in a dive bar. Now you don’t have to. (@greatartinuglyrooms)
Agenda Dates for your Diary
Building Indigenous and community power to stop climate change: using the law to protect our land, ClientEarth at COP27, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 9 November
International Climate Control Conference, Ki Culture X Gallery Climate Coalition, Online, 1 – 2 December
Design Miami, Miami Beach, Florida, November 30 – December 4
Mettere al mondo il mondo, curated by Mark Godfrey at Thomas Dane Gallery, Naples, until 23 December
Jake Grewal: Now I Know You I Am Older at Thomas Dane Gallery, London, 25 November – 28 January 2023
Ilana Savdie at Horizon Art Foundation, Los Angeles, November – January 2023
Lee Miller & Picasso at Newlands House Gallery, Petworth, West Sussex, until 10 January 2023
Two Worlds Entwined: Annie Morris and Idris Khan, Newlands House Gallery, Petworth, West Sussex, opening 11 February 2023
Frieze Los Angeles, Santa Monica Airport, California, 16 – 19 February 2023
Wu Tsang at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, presented by TBA21, Madrid, opening 2023
Abundant Futures in Troubled Times presents works from the TBA21 collection at the C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba, Spain, until 5 March 2023
Caragh Thuring at Hastings Contemporary, Hastings, East Sussex, until 12 March 2023
Indu Antony at the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), Bengaluru, as part of Wellcome Trust’s Mindscapesprogramming, opening March 2023