Are you LOCATIONALIZED by Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan was commissioned by ATLAS Arts as part of GENERATION: a nationwide celebration of 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland.
The Apothecary’s Tower, The Lump / Meall na h-Acairseid, Portree, Isle of Skye
Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre, Lochmaddy, North Uist, HS6 5AA
The Dairy adjacent to Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre, Lochmaddy, North Uist
Are you LOCATIONALIZED spanned the two Hebridean islands of Skye and North Uist and brought together a number of elements, including two outdoor structures (one on each of the islands), a series of photo-works within Taigh Chearsabhagh arts centre on North Uist, and an information desk within the ATLAS Arts office in Portree on the Isle of Skye. These elements were positioned in relation to their context, and each other, in order to build a complex, cumulative artwork that explored the situation it was in (and perhaps provoked viewers to think likewise).
The project was designed to coincide with the Highland Games in Portree, where the focus of the commission was a temporary structure around the Apothecary’s Tower, overlooking the Highland Games. At Taigh Chearsabhagh, a temporary structure was erected onto the gable end of the former dairy adjacent to the arts centre. Displayed inside were 16 photo-works of the publicly sited sculptures of Loughborough University campus and the 'road end sculptures' in the Uists. The four elements of the artwork can be read as one, with each part adding (or detracting) another component to the work.
Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan produce work that questions the role of art, what is expected of it, and how it is understood and interpreted. They create artworks that combine photography, text, performance, sculpture, drawing and installation, with their recent projects also including artworks and events by other artists and contributors. Tatham and O’Sullivan employ a vocabulary of images, phrases and forms that are recognizable from both a common history and from their previous works. They work in relation to the location and history of the spaces their artwork is shown within to produce pieces that create conversations or disruptions within their surroundings.
Joanne Tatham (born 1971 in West Yorkshire) & Tom O’Sullivan (born 1967 in Norfolk) have worked together since 1995, after they met whilst studying the MFA at Glasgow School of Art. Tatham graduated with a PhD from the University of Leeds in 2004. Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan’s artworks often function as displacements or diversions which encompass sculpture, painting, architecture, photography, performance, literature, institutional critique and curation. They have exhibited at Tramway, Glasgow; Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland; Studio Voltaire, London; and Eastside Projects, Birmingham. They represented Scotland at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005 and were shortlisted for the Northern Art Prize in 2013. They are currently living and working in Newcastle upon Tyne, London and Glasgow.
ATLAS Arts is an itinerant arts organisation based on the Isle of Skye that celebrates and explores the specificity of place within a local, national and international context. ATLAS commissions contemporary art that creates connections between artists and audiences, and responds to the unique qualities of the region, its landscapes, its culture and its people.
GENERATION was a major, nation-wide exhibition programme showcasing some of the best and most significant artists to have emerged from Scotland over the last 25 years. It was delivered as a partnership between the National Galleries of Scotland, Glasgow Life and Creative Scotland, as part of Culture 2014, the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme.
