Art / group exhibition
Six Bristol teenagers help to curate new immersive exhibition at Undershed
Working over four months with lead curator Amy Rose, six students aged 14-17 years from schools across Bristol have co-curated the latest exhibition at the immersive gallery space, Undershed.
Entitled SENTIENTS, the exhibition features a collection of digital artworks – blending art, gaming an immersive technology – from a range of internationally acclaimed artists.
Together, the works on show challenge the viewer to suspend their humanity, posing a single overarching question: ‘How might seeing through other eyes change the way we see ourselves?’
is needed now More than ever
Still from The Alluvials, a computer-generated film and playable game by Alice Bucknall – photo: courtesy of the artist
The young curators – from Montpelier High School, St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School, Cathedral Choir School, St Bede’s Catholic College and Cotham School – were involved at every stage of the process, working to produce a visually arresting show that would resonate with their peers.
They explored themes including ecology, climate change, identity and imagination, as well as selecting the final artworks, shaping the visitor journey and mapping out ways in which to promote the exhibition to prospective visitors.
Still from Demelza Kooij, Wolves from Above, a video piece from Sentients at Undershed – photo: courtesy of the artist
The five artists chosen have made astonishingly varied work, much of it interactive.
The artist collective Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF)’s VR piece In the Eyes of The Animal invites the visitor to sit down on a tree stump, wearing a headset and a haptic vest that synchronises physical vibrations with what they can see. They are then able to experience the sensory world of a forest through the eyes of a mosquito, dragonfly, frog and owl.
Still from In The Eyes of the Animals, a VR experience from experimental artist collective Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) – photo: courtesy of MLF
In Alan Kwan’s short cinematic game Scent, the user becomes a dog “wandering through a conflict zone, gathering the souls of the dead” – a witness without control.
“I wanted to create this space for people to put in their own imaginations” says Kwan, “and relate to what they are experiencing in the real world.”
Still from Scent, a short cinematic game by Alan Kwan – photo: courtesy of the artist
Designed to provoke a sense of curiosity and wonder in the viewer, the multi-award-winning interactive piece Everything by David O’Reilly makes every object in the universe a playable character – “from bears to blades of grass to planets and galaxies”; anchored by a soundtrack of quotes from philosopher Alan Watts.
In The Alluvials, Alice Bucknall’s experimental computer-generated film and accompanying game, people are invited to leave their humanity behind and instead inhabit “wildfire, wolves, rivers, Yucca moths and Joshua trees” in a climate-altered Los Angeles – exploring “themes of ecological grief, resilience and environmental change”.
Still from The Alluvials, a computer-generated film and playable game by Alice Bucknall – photo: courtesy of the artist
The final piece in the exhibition comes from Demelza Kooij. A video piece called Wolves from Above, it invites the human into a world of animal communication; a place where “playful growling, sniffing, and licking feel oddly nearby”.
Reflecting on the success of the project, Rose is full of admiration for the young collaborators: “The group brought fresh ideas, deep curiosity and contemporary insight to the process of curating and designing SENTIENTS” she says, “helping us create an experience that speaks directly to the questions and concerns of a new generation”.
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SENTIENTS (age recommendation 12+) is at Undershed from July 18-September 13, and the experience lasts for 90 minutues (gallery opening times Monday-Friday 12.30-20.00).
Main photo: Still from In The Eyes of the Animals by Marshmallow Laser Feast (courtesy of MLF)
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