Creative Arts, Department of Art and Design
University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
Secretaire opening: CoCoLlab Salon
with SAIC group visit from Chicago
21 January 2010
Sally Alatalo and Simon Anderson brought a group of students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) to visit CFPR as part of a study trip to London, Bristol and Bath in January 2010.
Katie, Sara, Bre, Kate, Sylvia, Craig, Sara, Anna, David, Morgan, Kevin, Jackie, Noor, Amelia, Ana, Raphael, Shannon and Heather spent the day at UWE for a morning artists’ books lecture/workshop and an afternoon Salon in the studios hosted by Angie Butler and Lilla Duignan, MA students at UWE who work as the collaborative team CoCoLlab.
Angie and Lilla purchased a secretaire - a very attractive small-sized Arts & Crafts period oak writing cabinet with lower bookshelves of unusually small size, with a fall front design which opens to provide a writing/work surface and pigeonholes.
Angie and Lilla invited the group to make small works - books, text or image, audio or visual pieces to go into the secretaire for the Salon, and to stay there for an exhibition tour they are planning to visit other institutions which have a specific interest in artists’ books. The brief was to create a site-specific piece based on their travels in the UK.
The students created a fine selection of bookworks, video and audio pieces for the project, including a brilliant remake of Les Coleman’s Meet the Art Students, after spending a day with him for a studio visit as part of their London tour.
On the day of the Chicago group’s visit to UWE, Angie and Lilla hosted the afternoon Salon event (with tea served in proper cups and saucers, and beautiful homemade cakes) where students and staff from SAIC discussed their ‘secretaire’ books with students and staff from UWE. Many thanks to Angie and Lilla for hosting the afternoon’s event, we all had a great time!
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