I am a curator based here in Plymouth since 2016. I was commuting from Cardiff when I started as Artistic Director of Plymouth Arts Centre in 2014 but after 18 months the commute was too much and we moved. PAC closed its visual art programme last summer and I am now working independently, still drawn to what Plymouth offers artists, curators and audiences interested in contemporary art. My background working at Tate Modern and running the art prize Artes Mundi was always internationally focused but what I loved about PAC – and continue to love about the city – is how strong the local scene is, both in terms of quality of the artists and the strong impulse of self-organise and make things happen.
The logic that underpins the big developments in contemporary art in the city – from KARST to PAW to The Box (opening dreckly) – is firmly rooted in the ways artists have pushed ideas into existence that others in positions of power get behind when they realise what an essential contribution art makes to the life of our city. Geddon artists!
Q & A with Ben
What do you love about showing and/or making work in Plymouth?
One of the things I really value about programming exhibitions in Plymouth is how the conversations around different shows – and across a programme – have a very tangible effect on conversations and, sometimes, artistic practice. Plymouth is small enough that it is hard to miss anything, meaning everyone here shares common points of reference. If it is good we can talk about how why and how to make it better, and if it is not good enough then we can all moan and complain collectively. Best of all, we might even disagree with other (politely) from informed positions. This is what is great about structures like CAMP which can accommodate wildly divergent approaches to artistic practice, while being underpinned by a commitment to the idea that collective representation of individual positions will strengthen the voice of artists in the city at a time of institutional consolidation.
What can you tell us about this project, and why is now a good time to share it?
Will Roberts’ paintings are relatively new to me which made it the right project for me to bring to PAW. Most of the exhibitions I curate develop out of slow burn research and conversations that unfold over 2, 3, sometimes even 10 or more, years. I definitely did not want to present something I was already considering as a Plymouth Arts Centre project but instead to move quickly and take a much looser, intuitive, and self initiated approach. The fact the exhibition has ended up at PAC is completely unintentional – it is a last minute solution to another venue falling through. Nonetheless, I take pleasure in the symmetry between this ‘return of the repressed’ eventuality and the exhibition’s title ‘Palindrome Paintings’.
What are you excited to see at this year’s PAW, and why?
Obviously new work by all the artists I know and will see for the first time, but also others from the city and beyond I haven’t yet encountered. Like most others, I am always intrigued to see if someone has managed to unearth an amazing and unexpected venue that has been hiding in plain sight with nobody understanding why such a great resource has been allowed to languish untapped – which could, perhaps, be taken as a metaphor for Plymouth.
25, 26 & 27 Sept 2020 