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The
city itself looms large as a theme in Sheffield's first city-wide
contemporary art event.
The
three week long event spans sixteen locations and it's not
just confined to galleries: you'll find it at Corporation nightclub,
in the Winter Gardens, on street corners, old industrial sites and
even your email inbox.
According
to the Site Gallery's Jeanine Griffin, a range of talent has been
enlisted: "it's a mixture of internationally renowned artists
and emerging local artists."
Georgina
Starr, whose works appear in the Tate Modern and the Museum of Modern
Art in Manhattan, has reconstructed a drive-in cinema in Sheffield.
People
and places
But
other works examine the landscape and people of Sheffield itself.
You
may have already received an email from Lizzie Smith, who is using
the electronic medium to contact several hundred people who live
or work in a certain Sheffield location.
She
aims to build a written picture of the street through cross-references
and conversation.
Dutton
& Peacock's Artstar video work features a woman standing at
key city centre locations holding a local newspaper.
Two
other works concentrate on the cultural and physical regeneration
that is a familiar feature of neighbouring northern cities.
Will
Sheffield's industrial spaces be gentrified by redevelopment into
warehouse flats?
Mel
Jordan and Andy Hewitt have pre-empted the process by redeveloping
their studio in S1 into a show flat.
Another
work, Sons of the Desert, focusses on an actual brown-field site.
Chloe Steel uses house-shaped bricks to mirror the layout of a real
local housing estate in Mass.
Shooting
Live artists
Skin/Strip
at the Site Gallery is guaranteed to attract attention in South
Yorkshire and beyond.
A collaboration
between the artists and other organisations, including BBCi, it
invites the global digital community to anonymously contribute pictures
of their body parts.
The
resulting website is a collective, live digital exhibition.
Visitors
to the gallery can contribute in person by turning up to be photographed.
Another
Shooting Live project will see performance artists Leslie Hill and
Helen Pollard re-creating the suffragette protests to highlight
the rights denied to the lesbian and gay community.
Multi-media
This
is such a broad event there should be something to intrigue most
visitors. Some formats will be familiar - like Stephen Carley's
graphics and paintings.
Other
artists, like Sheffield based Third Angel, may be known to audiences
who have seen their recent stage work Leave No Trace at the Crucible
Studio.
Works
by other emerging local artists have an air of mystery.
Apology
at Bloc Space uses digital and mechanical technologies to "fictionalise
the immediate environment," according to local artist James
Brown.
Art
Sheffield 03 events are running around the city from 29 March to
19 April 2003.
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