COBALT STUDIOS’ EVERYDAY ART FOR EXTRAORDINARY TIMES

COBALT STUDIOS’ KATE HODGKINSON TALKS ABOUT THEIR EVERYDAY ART FOR EXTRAORDINARY TIMES PROJECT, AND THE WORK WHICH DOCUMENTED A POIGNANT VISUAL MEMORY OF A HISTORICAL MOMENT IN TIME

The idea behind Everyday Art for Extraordinary Times was to create an archive of everybody’s everyday art during lockdown. We wanted to capture the breadth of the creative work that everybody was using their extra time to produce, in many ways it felt like the whole world had a moment for pause and for many people creativity seemed to be a very human instinct to fill the time and find a way to express important stuff.

It gave a real window into the world of many people’s different experiences of lockdown and created visual memory of a very specific historical moment in time. It also gave people a chance to feel connected to a project and for their creative endeavour to have a platform whatever their background – if it mattered to somebody enough for them to create it then it mattered to us too.

The response was incredibly broad, ranging from technical animation explorations to a kitchen ballet and somebody who made a kind of floor plan piece of art of his flat and lots of people who documented daily walks. It was real mix of people, some making a living from art, some hobbyists, a lad doing his GCSEs, and in some cases it felt as though submitting visual art to a project might be an entirely new experience. I loved the dancer who did a sequence of dances around a chair in her small backyard, and the single mum at home with two small kids who was still finding time to make photographic images. We are making a limited edition book, as a thank you to all contributors and there will be some spare.

As for Cobalt, our creation of a co-working space continues, and we are also creating additional studios and a small outdoor venue area (subject to planning and licensing) – as Covid continues, these plans are strategic in terms of sustainability and survival. There will be music, arts learning and lots of other creative interactive stuff in some shape or form. We’ve got to keep believing that somehow or some way there will be dancing at some point not too far away!

www.cobaltstudios.co.uk