Kieren Reed: Collaborative

Further information

Kieren Reed and Abigail Hunt

Artists Kieren Reed and Abigail Hunt’s collaborative practice addresses the role of audience and situation, and the importance of the participation of the viewer. They are interested in creating artworks which consider recent events of mass public support or outcry and in critiquing our ‘caring’ society and its methods of expressing emotion within social groups. Artworks create situations and document participants/audience in suggested or manufactured events, exploring the very notion of collaborative and open source practice.

Recently they manufactured an architectural ‘kiosk’, which forms a site for communication with audience on matters relating to expressing statement. The piece is ambiguous and suggestive of notions of exchange and simulation and in fact functions as a space for the transfer of information and the initiation of discussion, placing them, as artists at the fulcrum point within a discourse. It also provides the viewer with the opportunity to offer or take information or commission artworks. One of the main intentions of this work is to explore the notion of primary and secondary audiences. The kiosk project in its essence creates two different audiences – one directly involved in interacting with it and one which may only view the results of that interaction. This concept, which is rooted in the very idea of collaboration, raises many issues about public voices, agency, audience manipulation and relational art practice.

Statement

Installation

New Art Gallery Walsall