‘Kinetic Water Sculpture’, Roger Mann
We were invited by the River & Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames to devise an artist brief to commission a kinetic sculpture for the main entrance, that would relate to the museum’s collection and also act as an interactive and engaging fund-raising device for visitors to the museum.
Following an extensive selection process and working in collaboration with the museum and architect David Chipperfield, we commissioned Roger Mann to design a site-specific kinetic sculpture that utilises sound, water and light. ‘Kinetic Water Sculpture’ captures the effect of a rowing eight on the river surface accompanied by the sounds of various waterfowl. The sculpture is animated by money entering a collection box. We managed the whole process from concept design to completion.
We commissioned ‘Kinetic Water Sculpture’ in 1998 on behalf of the River & Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames.
Arts & Business New Partners Award, Elizabeth-Jane Grose
HS Projects received funds from the Arts & Business New Partners initiative to run a series of workshops with lead artist Elizabeth-Jane Grose for Brunswick residents, business tenants and primary school children and staff of a nearby after school support centre.
The Brunswick, a listed development built in the 1970’s, was undergoing extensive redevelopment as part of the North Bloomsbury area regeneration and this project formed part of the art strategy for the Brunswick. The workshops examined the unique social history of the area, dominated by the socio-cultural legacy of the Foundling Hospital, Britain’s first home for abandoned babies and infants, founded back in the late eighteenth century by Captain Thomas Coram. Many of the mothers whose babies had been accepted into the Foundling Hospital would leave tokens with their babies in the hope that they may some day be re-united with their child.
The workshops looked at the social reality and legacy of the Foundling Hospital on the area and also in a wider context, through their life time experiences, ending with each participant designing and drawing their own tokens.
Commissioned by HS Projects in 2005, Elizabeth-Jane Grose worked with Brunswick Residents, business tenants and Coram After School children & staff.
‘Digital Embroidery’, Paula Roush
The ‘Digital Embroidery’ project aim was to develop a participatory project with offender-learners in the art & design programme run by Amersham & Wycombe College at HMP Pentonville, as part of the government’s offender learning initiatives to transform the skills and employment prospects of prisoners when they leave jail. The course at H.M.P. Pentonville provided work related training in the areas of machine sewing and embroidery. The participants under Paula Roush’s guidance, worked with the software programme of the prison’s computerised embroidery machine. Machine embroidery is the use of a computerised embroidery machine to automatically create a design from a pre-made pattern that is in-putted into the machine. Learners used specific software to create their own designs and patterns.
All works in the exhibition developed out of a series of workshops with Paula Roush, resulting in the design and production of 2D projects, which integrated visual arts with the medium of digital embroidery. The participants looked at the pre-historic evolution of embroidery from tattoo and body art through the prism of current counter-culture; and explored images of architecture and subjective elements of custodial experience, including representations of the panopticon, to images of cells and the body. The themes explored also related to the motto of ‘making more people better off’ and the prison services’ goal of reducing repeat offending.
‘Digital Embroidery’ was commissioned by HS Projects in 2006 and was funded by the Insight Community Arts Programme (2002 – 2015).