JOHN HUGHES ARTS FESTIVAL 2021
- Christopher Burlinson
We’re thrilled to launch the 2021 John Hughes Arts Festival! With so many events cancelled this year, it is testament to the amazing work of our committee that we have been able to find a way to continue this wonderful college tradition.
While hosting a virtual festival offers many challenges, it also creates many new opportunities. This year, we are able to expand the reach of our events – anyone, anywhere can tune in! Wonderful guests can join us who may not have otherwise been able to, including Gayle Chong Kwan, an incredible artist based in London who will be speaking on our panel about art and dismantling the ‘canon’. Our virtual gallery – inspired by the college’s Marshall Room – has expanded the scope of what we can display as ‘art’, meaning you’ll find some pieces in there that we couldn’t hang on an ordinary wall. And the wonders of the internet mean the gallery will be available to view for a whole year!
In
this
finding
difficult ways
community
to
has
and
isolating
come never
time,
together been
as
a
more
important. Celebrating art in all of its forms is an incredible way to do this. With 21 artists, 40 pieces, 4 live online events,
and
3
‘on
demand’
events, we hope the weekend
online ahead
will bring you joy, and will offer some respite from the rest of the world right now.
Posy and Liv Festival Directors, 2021
toby ashworth JESUS 2020
jack ward JESUS 2020
in connection wi
...body and gender
religion
ith
devotion
and sexuality...
*filmed in socially distanced conditions watch jack's full performance on our website!
Two of the prerequisites for creating an art gallery are —unsurprisingly— artworks and a gallery. This year, for reasons we are all more than aware of, JHAF had neither — but we weren’t going to let that stop us. Armed with determination and the email address of a 3D design company, we set to work, trying to figure out how to put art on walls, without art… or walls. The result is a wonderful 3D replica of the College’s medieval Marshall Room, complete with beams, leaded windows, and some fabulous art.
Our theme, Constellations, seemed to fit the mood of the times. The word itself encompasses an almost oxymoronic feeling of both distance and togetherness, as well as an other-worldly sense of escapism: something that has felt even more important this year than ever before.
Artists from Cambridge and beyond responded with zest and zeal, producing the huge variety of artistic work you see in the virtual gallery. Some chose to address head on the bizarre material conditions that the last twelve months have thrown at us: Sophie Beckingham (also our star designer) put her eye-watering seven weeks of self-isolation in Michaelmas term to brilliant use, producing a series of paintings documenting the changing world outside her window, just a few of which can be seen in our gallery.
Katie Grenville, meanwhile, made the most of the frustration of having her degree show cancelled to create a strange, funny, and thought-provoking video piece exploring the actual, the virtual, and the nature of reality itself. We certainly never thought we’d find ourselves positioning a video of a real model of a non-existent degree show on the non-existent wall of a non-existent gallery, yet somehow it works.
Other artists chose to escape from the year’s uncertainty, taking our broad theme as a way of imagining the comfort of a strangely shrunken social world — perhaps the place we each take in a personal constellation: we wish Sophie Neville’s wonderful tapestry, House and Home, could have taken its full three-dimensional form in the Marshall Room, but it looks at home hanging in the fireplace of our virtual equivalent. Alex Haydn-Williams’ series Otherwhere brings a shot of Italian sun to our walls, juxtaposing clean lines of architecture, text from John Berger and wide expanses of blue sky with both a grounding and disorientating effect. Ella Nowicki, meanwhile, chose to focus on the close-to-hand —a coffee cup, headphones, cooking ingredients— when everything else was overwhelming.
Other artists re-imagined bodies and selves as constellations in movement: Fern Acheson’s five stunningly detailed paintings look back over the now abstracted memories of a summer gone by, while Sieve Bonaiuti’s charming people-watching imagines the way chance encounters can form brief, barely perceptible constellations between perfect strangers.
In a way, it’s comforting to think of this gallery as a bit like a constellation in and of itself — a means of bringing people together, even as they orbit alone, perhaps hundreds of miles apart. In this time when the College, University and wider community cannot be together physically, we hope that our little, digital Marshall Room can bring you a bit of nostalgic happiness: a pixelated piece of Jesus.
Thank you to Claire Cutts, Alex Lancastle and the rest of the team at V21 Artspace for their brilliant work creating our gorgeous 3D Marshall Room— quite frankly, we would have been lost without them.
We hope you enjoy taking a turn around our virtual gallery.
Toby and Rose Co-Heads of Gallery
abby wheeler JESUS 2019
fern acheson JESUS 2019
JESUS 2019
Art has always been a huge part of my life, but it wasn’t until lockdown last summer that I had a long period of ‘nothing’ and time to properly focus on painting. My days became structured around painting; I would walk to the beach and sketch people enjoying their little bit of freedom and then once I got back home, I painted from these drawings. I found that people were making use of the shared beach space in ways I had never seen before and representing this was fascinating. By overlaying the positive and negative spaces created by people as they moved, I aimed to suggest narratives for the viewer to piece together.
This painting captures perhaps one my favourite encounters atop Glastonbury Tor, a sight known as the crossing point for subterranean ley lines and said to be the heart of the earth mother in folklore. There is undoubtedly an aura of magic which surrounds this singular and isolated island and its tower. I climbed the tor one summers evening just as the sun was dropping over the horizon. It cast an orange glow over the sea of fields below and shone through a small window lancet window in the tower illuminating a patch of wall in which the folk singer sat. She sat serenely; a single glowing figure all dressed in knitted orange in the dark interior. She began to sing and her music washed over the gathered audience who sat silently, captivated by her song. I only had a sketchbook with me at the time and tried in vain to capture the light. It was only later with orange paint that even a semblance of that magic could be retained and recorded.
JESUS 2018
issie weir JESUS 2018
My
painting
demonstrates
the
convergence of earthly and other-worldly realms, taking the original photograph of Elly out of its very worldly context and replacing its background with something paradoxical habitable.
and I
surreal,
painted
a
yet
pattern
still whose
squiggly lines reminded me of a fictive landscape and offered its flat, arbitrarilycoloured arrangement a spatial dimension by placing Elly on one of its contours, giving
it
the
appearance
of
a
road
receding into space. With her prominent shadow, the pattern becomes not merely an
independent
backdrop
before
which
the figure floats, but a space which she herself inhabits.
tabitha blackburn JESUS 2020
FLY ME TO THE MOON Ingredients: Peach Schnapps (1 measure) Gin (1 measure) Lemonade (200ml, or to taste) Blue food colouring (3 drops) JHAF 2021’s signature cocktail that’ll transport you to the stars with its fizz. Simply add all of the ingredients to a glass with ice and stir. Add some fresh lemon juice to sharpen, or a few drops of blue food colouring for the full Constellations effect!
SEND IN PICTURES OF YOUR COCKTAILS AND WE WILL SHARE THEM ON OUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES!
SPACE GIRL Ingredients: Vodka (double measure) Juice of a lime Mint leaves (~10) Granulated sugar (2 tablespoons) Mango juice (3 tablespoons) Soda water A fun mix of sharp and sweet, Space Girl is our fruiter cocktail option. Roughly chop the mint leaves and add to the bottom of a glass. Shake the vodka, lime juice and mango juice with ice and sugar. (No worries if you don’t have a shaker - just give it a good stir!) Pour over the mint and top off with soda to taste. Add more fruit juice if you’re feeling sweet!
(I SAW A) LUNAR ECLIPSE Ingredients: Your choice of fruit juice (orange, mango, pineapple, or passionfruit work best! Or a mix!) - 3 tablespoons Juice of half a lime Mint leaves (~10) Granulated sugar (2 tablespoons) Soda water Space Girl’s non-alcoholic sister! Follow the instructions above but hold the vodka - for a fruity mocktail with a sour twist.
COULD YOU GIVE US A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF YOUR CURRENT WORK?
GAYLE: At the core of my practice is a methodology of ‘imaginal travel’ in which I connect and move through objects, contexts, people, places, and historical sources, which also move through me. I work with photography, collage,
mise-en-scene
landscapes,
ritual
and
sensory
experiences,
propositions, and pieces worn on the body. My process has evolved as I have begun to understand that not being confined to singular spaces nor gallery-settings, and not having necessarily any object-based outcomes at all, can be a way to move art away from the artist as producer of an object to an experience, both inner and shared, by the participant(s). I am currently Artist in Residence in Photography at the V&A, I am developing a project with Ca’ Foscari University in Venice as recipient of the 2019 Sustainable Art Prize, and I am completing my PhD in Fine Art at the Royal College of Art.
GAYLE CHONG
ANASTASIA
HARRIET
KWAN
KOLOMIETS
LOFFLER
HARRIET: Since 2018, I have been Curator of the New Hall Art Collection, a contemporary art collection with over 500 art works by women artists. The Collection is displayed across Murray Edwards College, designed by the architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon as a manifesto for the education of women. The Collection has a remarkable history which begins with the donation of a work by the leading American artist Mary Kelly, from 1986. It has grown considerably since then and includes works by international artists such as Lubaina Himid, Paula Rego and Gayle Chong Kwan among many others. I work in a very small team so my work touches on both the micro and macro. Some days I might be clearing the leaves off the Barbara Hepworth sculpture in the garden, while on others I will be developing a new partnership with an arts organisation. I am keen for the Collection to be better known and for the works of women artists to be given the attention they deserve. The Collection is eclectic so I try to reflect on the relationship between the work of art and its broader context.
ANASTASIA: I am a third year undergraduate studying history of art at the University of Cambridge. Last year, on the request of collection curator Harriet Loffler, I undertook research into the representation of BME artists in the collection, determining that only approximately 5% of the artists at New Hall are from BME backgrounds. I am also a member of the Decolonise History of Art student-led working group.
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT A TIME WHEN YOU'VE RUN UP AGAINST 'CANON' AND HOW IT IMPACTED YOU?
GAYLE: I am currently involved with a group of artists in a ‘re-visioning’ of a major cultural organisation, which is a painful and difficult process for those involved – the canon and funding structures protect and distort organisations from really confronting systematic racism and inequality and making concrete changes.
HARRIET: When I studied Art History at undergraduate level very few women artists were taught on my course. It was only later, during my Master’s degree at the Royal College of Art – particularly in the classes of Jean Fisher – that feminist, queer and postcolonial perspectives entered the discussion. I think we need to clarify what we mean by the canon. The one which was taught while I was at University is androcentric and exclusive.
However,
the
New
Hall
Art
Collection
offers
a
counter
approach: it is populated by women artists, some of whom are well-known but many of whom are not – artists whose careers have been varied and circuitous. While it is always tempting to try and tell a grand, monolithic narrative – the ‘History of Art’ – the New Hall Art Collection does not (and should not) conform to this kind of historical straightjacketing. I am aware, however, that a Collection exclusively with artists who identify as women creates a grouping that does not include everyone on the gender spectrum.
ANASTASIA: I think the first time I came across the canon palpably, and it also helped make me aware of just how artificial and exclusionary it is, was in my first year of university. The first year course was a broad sweep of Eurocentric, white, male, and heteronormative art. We even had a global art week (it has now been removed, largely because of campaigning by the Decolonise History of Art group), which pigeon-holed most of the non-Western art covered in the course into one week of teaching. I think this experience made me realise just how strong the reign of the canon is and how important it is to tackle it. I joined the Decon HoA group, for example, and started being more critical and vocal about these issues.
sophie beckingham JESUS 2019
sophie
Spending 7 weeks of term in lockdown last
term
made
me
reconsider
how
I
beckingham
interacted and viewed my surroundings. Seeing the same view from my window every day made me see the unique beauty
JESUS 2019
in each sunrise and sunset as the seasons shifted.
I've been painting all my life but
have just taken up oil painting in the last year or so, painting scenes of everyday life over 2020 to show the beauty in the every day and people I have been able to see in the time of COVID with specific focus on movement and colour, inspired by my studies in the History of Art
ella curry JESUS 2019
I created this lino-printed self portrait to experiment with uniting a recognisable representation of my physical self with a stylised integration of some of what
“makes
interesting
to
me,
me”.
portray
in
This
was
particularly
black-and-white,
as
an
integral part of my identity is my love of colour. Lino is also a medium that restricts detail, so I decided
to
integrating
limit
myself
to
moons,
stars,
the
shapes of the sea and tides.
a
celestial
sun,
and
theme,
the
fluid
JHAF X CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY
1) MOUNT YOUR CAMERA ON A TRIPOD, CHECKING THAT IT IS STABLE AND SECURE. (THIS CAN BE ANY TYPE OF CAMERA, BUT A DSLR IS PREFERRED!) 2) SET YOUR CAMERA TO THE FOLLOWING SETTINGS: MANUAL OR BULB MODE BALANCE IN DAYLIGHT OR AUTO EXPOSURE LENGTH OF 15-30 SECONDS (A LONGER EXPOSURE LETS IN MORE LIGHT, BUT TOO LONG LEADS TO STAR TRAILS) APERTURE BETWEEN F/2.8 - F/4 (A SMALLER NUMBER IS A BIGGER APERTURE, WHICH ALLOWS MORE LIGHT INTO THE LENS AND CREATES BRIGHTER IMAGES) IMAGE FORMAT RAW ISO 400-1600 (THIS MAKES THE FILM MORE SENSITIVE TO LOW LIGHT -- TOO HIGH AND THE IMAGE WILL BE GRAINY) 3) USING MANUAL FOCUS, FOCUS ON THE BRIGHTEST STAR IN VIEW. 4) SNAP YOUR SHOT!
ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
AVOID TOUCHING THE CAMERA DURING LONGEXPOSURE SHOTS. YOU CAN DO THIS BY USING A REMOTE CONTROL, OR A CAMERA DELAY TIMER. SHOOT IN CLEAR SKIES WITH AS LITTLE MOONLIGHT AS POSSIBLE PUT AWAY ANY LIGHT SOURCE (PHONES, TORCHLIGHTS ETC). IF REALLY NECESSARY, USE RED LIGHT BY COVERING THE TORCHLIGHT WITH A RED FILM/CLOTH. TAKE MULTIPLE SHOTS AND STACK THEM TOGETHER USING SOFTWARE LIKE PHOTOSHOP OR LIGHTROOM TO IMPROVE THE SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO. THIS WILL ALSO ALLOW YOU TO BRIGHTEN THE IMAGE TO SEE MORE FEATURES!
blan
This Eve
is
a
painting
Taking
A
from
Nude
my
series.
Since May 2020 I have been painting across
women
the
world
from to
all
tackle
nude shaming and sexualising narratives. This piece means a lot to me because the pose is so
strong
and
I
favourite
sunrise
increase
the
used colours
warmth
my to and
strength that I hope to produce with my art.
sl ca mariposa JESUS 2017
This is the view from an old Spanish
fort
that
protected
Iloilo, the town where I was born.
Today,
only
the
remnants of the fort remain, and it has become a place that
anja diel JESUS 2019
people go to in the evenings to catch
the
photographed
sea
breeze.
the
scene
I just
after sunset; the water was lit up by reflections of the busy streets. The composition was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's cinematography, the painting's vibrant
colours
by
David
Hockney. I painted it a few days after I returned from the Philippines
with
the
atmosphere of the place still fresh in my mind.
There’s a lot of people who have helped make JHAF 2021 happen, and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank our incredible team, who rose to the challenge (with creativity and enthusiasm) of moving the festival online. We couldn’t have done it without you!
Kudos especially to the gallery team – and to everyone at V21 Artspace – who envisioned, curated and created our virtual gallery. Rose and Toby, our gallery team leaders, have been absolutely invaluable!
Thank you to our events team who have created an inspiring and wideranging series of events for us all to enjoy – and to the publicity team who have ensured you know all about it!
A special mention to the talented Sophie Beckingham, who created the official JHAF 2021 zine, logo, and all of the graphics you’ve seen on our social media pages over the last few months. Sophie has some artwork in the gallery that is definitely worth having a look at!
We are also grateful for the support (and funds!) of the Jesus College Student Union in making this switch to an online gallery, and particularly Jacob Powell who created the wonderful JHAF website. Thanks also go to James Crockford and Christopher Burlinson for their support, advice and encouragement.
- Posy and Liv
abby alex
wheeler
haydn-williams amelie amy
slack
bottomley anja aoife
diel
clark
blanca katie charlotte
sl
grenville mcdonald ella
curry
ella
nowicki
fern
acheson
issie
weir
jack
ward
juliet
patrick
juliette
odolant
nik
yazikov
sieve sophie
bonaiuti
beckingham
sophie tabitha toby
neville
blackburn ashworth
JOHN HUGHES ARTS FESTIVAL 2021
OLIVIA EMILY
POSY PUTNAM
co-president
co-president
TOBY ASHWORTH
ROSE ASQUITH
co-head of gallery
co-head of gallery
MEESHA MUNOT
ALEX VARDILL
MILLIE SLACK
gallery team
gallery team
gallery team
ABI SEYMOUR
SOPHIE BECKINGHAM
head of publicity
graphic design
BLANCA SL publicity team
KIRSTEN MURRAY head of events
LUCY ATKIN events team
SUINING SIM events team
MOLLY DESORGHER events team
JESS MOLYNEUX
KATY CARTLIDGE
BEN GIBSON
sponsorship
treasurer
secretary