Ten artists have been selected for Syllabus II, a national programme delivered by Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, New Contemporaries, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, Spike Island, Bristol, and Studio Voltaire, London, working in partnership. It provides an alternative learning programme for artists over a one-year period which is peer led and developed collaboratively with the artists and partners.
The selected artists are: Mira Calix, Faye Claridge, Mike Harvey, E. Jackson, Tyler Mallison, Nika Neelova, Tom Smith, Dylan Spencer-Davidson, Thomas Whittle and Laura Wilson.
The artists are based across the UK – Sussex, Essex, Edinburgh, Warwickshire and London - and represent a wide range of ages and experience, coming from across the globe. Their work includes painting, sculpture, music, publishing, installation and performance, alongside cross-disciplinary and curatorial practices.
Starting at Wysing in September 2016, the artists will come together to share their work, and co-develop the year’s syllabus alongside the partners. Meeting every two months, the cohort will invite guest artists, curators, writers and other practitioners to deliver intensive seminars at each of the partner venues. The first year of The Syllabus in 2015 saw guest artists including Barby Asante, Céline Condorelli, Andy Holden, James Langdon, Richard Long, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Richard Wentworth and Rehana Zaman.
After the pilot year of The Syllabus in 2015, which has already seen ten artists develop a strong peer support network and create new opportunities, the partners invited applications for year two through an open call. Following an interview process that sought to select artists from a wide range of backgrounds and whose work reflects a range of interests and practices, the partners are delighted to announce the second cohort of the programme.
Nika Neelova was born in Moscow, Russia and lives and works in London. Her sculpture explores a posthuman landscape and are often dysfunctional replicas of daily objects. Neelova is interested in the material processes involved in translating an object into another medium, decoding and recoding it into its new reality, altering its internal structure and eliminating its original purpose. Recent solo exhibitions include FAULTS FOLDS FALLS, Vigo gallery London (2015) and I lean to you numb as a fossil. Tell me I’m here, Ron Mandos, Amsterdam (2014); group exhibitions include Archeologia e Architecture, Fondazione 107, Turin (2015) and The Sky is a mountain, Foundation Stifelsen 3,14, Bergen, Norway (2015).
Wysing Arts Centre develops new ways to support artists and enables art and ideas to engage a wide range of people in unexpected ways. Wysing’s large rural site near Cambridge comprises artists’ studios, educational space, a gallery, live/works studio, a 17th century farmhouse and outdoor sculptures and structures. Wysing offers a unique environment for research and experimentation and for the development and presentation of new work; with an ongoing and innovative artistic programme of events, exhibitions, retreats and residencies and a unique programme for young artists.
