Opening of A DLROW FOR EHT TAKING

Nicole Polonsky's A DLROW FOR EHT TAKING opened on Sunday 29 March.

In this work Nicole Polonsky offers a site-specific installation which responds to the domestic window as a liminal arena in which the private and public realms meet. Polonsky is interested in this as a locale where gestures towards activism may be performed, and political affiliations, belief systems and cherished hobbyhorses are voiced within the constraining parameters of the surrounding frame.

A DLROW FOR EHT TAKING presents a narrative that mines Nicole's past. 

This is the first time within her mature creative practice that the artist has produced an explicitly diaristic piece. Comprising lines of reverse, or mirror, writing inscribed in turn on the inside and outside of the window pane, the text reads correctly only when viewed line by line from opposite sides of the glass. 

By teasingly inviting and hampering the spectator’s engagement with the work, the artist seeks to convey her ambivalence towards self-revelation as source material and subject.

A DLROW FOR EHT TAKING continues until Friday 24 April.

Nicole installing the work

Caroline Gregory signing the visitor's book

Jo McCormick signing the visitor's book

Animated discussion between myself and Nicole at the opening 

Steve Rushton viewing the work

By holding mirrors to the window viewers are able to read 

the text written on both sides of the window 

Images by Daren Callow

Last week of - Fox's Window 11.3.11 - and opening of - A Dlrow For Eht Taking

Miyuki Kasahara's show Fox's Window 11.3.11 continues until 27 March
  below is a video of Miyuki's and Calum F. Kerr's performance of the Fox's Window at the opening of Miyuki's show.

The next show

A
DLROW
FOR
EHT
TAKING

by Nicole Polonsky opens on Sunday 29 March from 2pm to 5pm.

In A DLROW FOR EHT TAKING Nicole Polonsky offers a site-specific installation which responds to the domestic window as a liminal arena in which the private and public realms meet. 

A A DLROW FOR EHT TAKING presents a narrative that mines Polonsky's past. 

This is the first time within her mature creative practice that the artist has produced an explicitly diaristic piece. By teasingly inviting and hampering the spectator’s engagement with the work, the artist seeks to convey her ambivalence towards self-revelation as source material and subject.

Video of Fox's Window Story Telling Performance

A video of Miyuki's and Calum's performance of the Fox's Window at the opening of Miyuki's show - Fox's Window 11.3.11 - on Sunday 1 March

Miyuki's show continues until 27 March 

Following this show Nicole Polonsky presents

A
DLROW
FOR
EHT
TAKING


a site - specific installation that responds to the domestic window as a liminal arena in which the private and public realms meet - the opening of her show is Sunday 29 March from 2 to 5pm. 

Fox's Window 11.3.11 - Opening & Performance on Sunday 1 March

Miyuki Kasahara's Fox's Window 11.3.11 - opened on Sunday 1 March with a

reading with Calum F. Kerr, of Fox's Window written by Naoko Awa - a Japanese writer of modern fairy tales

Following their performance we gathered by Miyuki's window installation Fox's Window 11.3.11 to hear her talk about the work, which combined elements of the story with details of the affects of the radiation from the damaged Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused by a tsunami in 2011

Miyuki first adapted Fox's Window - a story telling performance stage set - in 2011 for the Nunhead Festival as a response to the nuclear disaster see 

http://www.miyukikasahara.com/htm_files/fox_window_menu.htm 

for more details of this. 

I have heard that my friend's young daughter who sat entranced during the story telling has repeatedly re-told the Fox's Window story to her friends.   

John 'Jazzman' Clarke enjoying a cuppa

Installation photographs by Calum F. Kerr and Miyuki Kasahara 

Performance photographs by Steve Rushton

Fox's Window 11.3.11.

The current show Window Poems continues until 27 February with visual poems by Louise Carson (Canada) John "Jazzman" Clarke, Peter Evans, Charlie Fox, Louise Hart, Julian van Hauson, Anna Khan, Daniel Lehan, Jude C Montague, Frog Morris, Marie-Pascale Hardy, Steve Rushton, 
The Vessel, Tim Siddall, and Ted Smith-Orr  

Miyuki Kasahara then presents Fox's Window 11.3.11 - opening on Sunday 1 March - an adaption of her story telling performance stage she first created in 2011 in response to the Tohoku Tsunami disaster in Japan. 

http://www.miyukikasahara.com/htm_files/fox_window_menu.htm

Fox's Window was written in 1971 by Naoko Awa (1943-1993), an award-winning Japanese writer of modern fairy tales.

 

In the story, through the Fox’s window – the shape made by putting one’s index fingers and thumbs together to form a diamond – one can see through to an irrecoverable and magical past. The story goes . . . on his way home, a hunter lost in the woods chases a young white fox and he comes across a dye shop with the fox (in his human form as a boy) in a blue bell field. The boy dyes the hunter’s fingers in blue using the blue bells and creates a diamond shaped window with the dyed fingers he can look through. Whenever the hunter looks through, he sees a girl who he has loved and has lost contact with and his family who are no longer able to be with him. As the exchange for this magical window, the fox-boy requests the hunter’s rifle and the hunter gives it to him. When the hunter returns home, he washes his hands before he realizes that the dye will wash off. 

The story is about nature, transformation, and bittersweet pain of a fondly remembered past. 
It suggests loss of family, orphans, death and disaster that could be from war but remains ambiguous and universal. 

Kasahara has chosen this story as several years after the Tsunami disaster in Japan many people are still missing, losing their families, and numerous children are orphans.

The Kitchen Window becomes a Fox’s window where people can view elements of the story as well as the devastation caused four years ago. Factual data of what has happened to families in the disaster area since 11 March 2011 can be viewed outside through the window frame.

Window Poems Opening

Window Poems opened on Sunday 25 January - Robbie Burns Night - with an afternoon lubricated by a special Sassanach Stout brewed by Frog Morris.

During the event, poets whose poems were displayed in the gallery window, read that poem, or another poem, and there was time to include readings by other poets who came along. 

It was a crowded and highly enjoyable event, inspired by Hugh Bryden and Dave Borthwick's placing of poems in Dumfries windows to celebrate Robbie Burns Night.  

The Kitchen Window Gallery invited  Louise Carson (Canada) John "Jazzman' Clarke, Peter Evans, Charlie Fox, Louise Hart, Julian van Hauson, Anna Khan, Jude Cowan Montague, Frog Morris, Marie-Pascale Hardy, Steve Rushton, Tim Siddall, Ted Smith-Orr, and The Vessel to handwrite, hand paint or collage a poem of theirs for inclusion in the exhibition.

Window Poems will continue unto 27 February and is viewable from the balcony outside the gallery 24 / 7.

  

Sassanach Stout brewed by Frog Morris

Frog and Maija Morris

Charlie Fox

Daren Callow reading on behalf of Julian van Hauson

Joanna McCormick reading on behalf of Louise Hart

Ted Smith-Orr

Peter Evans

Daniel Lehan reading on behalf of Louise Carson

Anne Robinson

Steve Rushton

Marie - Pascale Hardy

The Vessel

John "Jazzman' Clarke

Gallery Window One

Gallery Window Two


Photographs by Calum F. Kerr and Daren Callow

Window Poems

The next show at the gallery Window Poems opens on Sunday 25 January  (Robbie Burns Night) from 2 till 5pm.

Inspired by Hugh Bryden and Dave Borthwick's placing of contemporary poems 

in Dumfries windows (The Globe Inn, Robert Burns House Museum, and The Coach And Horses) to celebrate Robbie Burns Night - the gallery has invited poets to handwrite, hand paint or collage a poem of theirs for this exhibition. 

At the opening the poets will read their work, and a special stout brewed by Frog Morris, will be served.  

Poets taking part are: Louise Carson (Canada) John "Jazzman' Clarke, Peter Evans, Charlie Fox, Louise Hart, Julian van Hauson, Anna Khan, Daniel Lehan, Jude Cowan Montague, Frog Morris, Marie-Pascale Hardy, Steve Rushton, Tim Siddall, Ted Smith-Orr, and The Vessel.