Many thanks
Many thanks to all those who came to the preview of AGAIN and launch of the very last time at Firstsite, especially the contributors Esther Leslie, Joey Connolly, Marie Toseland and Tamarin Norwood who joined Holly Corfield Carr and myself to read from the book.
the very last time is published by ambergris editions and available now from Firstsite and Wysing Arts Centre in both first edition and special limited edition formats.
We were delighted by the response to the works and AGAIN and the very last time now move to the 2015 British Ceramics Biennial in Stoke on Trent opening on 26th September. Once again the show is at the remarkable abandoned Spode factory - see you there.
Exhibition and Book Launch at Firstsite - 12th September 2015
Next saturday 12th September sees a preview of AGAIN, a new participatory installation together with the launch of an accompanying collection of academic and creative writing titled the very last time at Firstsite in Colchester. AGAIN is an installation involving a hexagonal 6 player arcade coin pusher stocked with thousands of porcelain, terracotta and gold coins which the viewer can win and take away - or gamble and enter into a wager with the artwork.
the very last time is a new artist’s book responding to AGAIN and edited together with the poet Holly Corfield Carr. It includes a new translation one of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s most poignant letters as well as contributions from poets, artists, academics, an archaeologist, a psychoanalyst, a valuation expert, a bookmaker and a mudlarker. In turn I have responded to each contribution to the book by creating a coin design inspired by each piece of writing.
We’re delighted to be able to confirm contributions from:
Fyodor Dostoevsky, writer, pleads with his wife for forgiveness in a letter home written in the final days of their honeymoon in a new translation by Anna Gunin
Joey Connolly, poet, asks how the bookmaker feels about the dogs
Dr Richard Kelleher, Assistant Keeper of Coins at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge talks coins that sweat and currency that forgets
Geoffrey Munn, Managing Director of Wartski, jewellers by appointment to the Queen, and Antiques Roadshow expert examines a valuable ball of whale bile
Esther Leslie, Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck, finds Walter Benjamin in the video arcade
Viktor Mazin, psychoanalyst and curator of the Freud Dream Museum, tosses the non-Euclidean coin
Tamarin Norwood, artist and scholar, writes to the last word of casino design: PERCEPTION BEATS REALITY
Marie Toseland, artist and Open School East associate, measures the elastic horizon of desire
Please do join us for the launch of AGAIN and the very last time at Firstsite. Coins will be falling from 2pm and there will be readings and performances from our contributors once you have lost all you have won on AGAIN. For more information on the launch event and how to get to Firstsite, please see the gallery’s listings.
Following the launch, the very last time will be available to purchase online, in various gallery bookshops and at the 2015 British Ceramics Biennial.
AGAIN and the very last time has been made possible with the support of the Arts Council England, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the British Ceramics Biennial, Potclays and the Firstsite Associate Artist Bursary Programme.