The School of Life Exhibition
- Written byPost-Grad Community
- Published date 08 December 2021
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Louise Crawford - Alumni in MA Art & Science at Central Saint Martins tell us about her upcoming exhibition.
British artist Louise Crawford, creator of Studio 8_47, is hosting a volunteer community art exhibition, 'The School of Life’ at Egerton Place in Knutsford, Cheshire in the run-up to Christmas.
The project aims to bring people together people from all corners of the community providing an opportunity to rebuild social resilience through art.
Louise graduated from an MA in Art & Science at Central Saint Martins (CSM) last year amongst the pandemic, and was involved in the delayed graduation show, ‘Finally’ at Ugly Duck, London. Building on the work made for that exhibition, Louise wanted to keep up momentum and bring a little of her London experiences to her local community.
The exhibition will be held at Egerton Place: Grade II listed building, which was originally built as Egerton School in 1843.
The exhibition space has been generously donated by MBOSS the company that owns Egerton Place, Knutsford and, part of the GGM Group with offices on Southwark Street, behind Tate Modern in London. MBOSS are developing the property for future use as a wedding venue, private function hire and conference facilities. Knutsford Town Council kindly put the collaborators in touch, and donated some art easels for display purposes.
Residents, businesses and schools are invited to get involved, through audience participation, where they will be encouraged to share stories, prompted by the artwork, and take place in discussion and debate. Fellow Alumni artists, who will be installing various art forms to enhance the viewer experience, will join Louise.
Louise added,
The goal of the community project is to help audiences to reflect, and to challenge the usefulness of creativity by sparking active imagination.
Colour can penetrate the unconscious mind, triggering unconscious thoughts and making them conscious.
Painting plays a significant role in communication within human history and Louise wants to embrace this tradition, woven into time to improve social bonds and consider our place in the environment.
Louise concluded by saying,
Creator of Studio 8_47 Louise Crawford is interested in the links between art, and wellbeing, to form an internal dialogue with the self.
Behind-the-scenes images will be shared @Studio 8_47 on Instagram channel to give the wider creative community another platform to engage with.
The exhibition will pose questions to the audience, and also tie in with Knutsford Town Council’s ‘Memories of WW2 Project’, which aims to collect a social oral history of the town, and turn it into a living memory project to capture stories for future generations. Via questions and visual memory prompts, people are encouraged to share stories to gather an oral history, especially with links to WW2. They are especially keen to find anyone with memories of Glen Miller, who was believed to be staying in Knutsford during one of his bands tours.
The exhibition runs from17-20 December 2021 and will be open from 11am to 3pm. Walk in’s will be welcome but they encourage people to book in advance via the link below, and follow current COVID guidelines.
For more information and behind-the-scenes insights on “The School of Life” make sure you are following the Post-Grad Community’s Instagram @ual_postgrad_community - we will be doing a takeover!
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