first thursday july

Hartwell Street, Dalston

First Thursdays is an initiative of keeping east london's numerous art galleries & museums to open late every first thursday of the month for visitors to enjoy art in a relaxed manner after work. Many galleries would organise private views or special events to co-incide with the occasion to add a little bit more exposure to their artists and shows.

The Whitechapel Gallery would also organise a guided bus tour for selected venues around the area on the day. Some are selected for People may not normally know some of these galleries due to their remote locations or pop-up nature.

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Group Show - A Bright and Guilty Place
11.06-24.07.2010

by Dan Hays

Payne Shurvell is a new gallery at the 'hinterland' of Bishopgate Tower in east London. Run by James Payne & Joanne Shurvell, its debut group show has a range of art in different media.  James Payne, a graduate of Central St Martins, is a working artist, curator and the film editor of Garageland magazine.  Joanne Shurvell, former Communications Director at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, is a freelance arts writer and arts marketing consultant.

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Yudangami (2009) by Tabaimo

Parasol brings the first UK solo show of Japanese artist Tabaimo to London. With 3D animation beginning to take the world of entertainment, Tabaimo's traditional 2D animation is like a time-traveller journey to the eyes of the gallery-goers. The gallery staff said that she draws every slide of her video work and compose the music by her own self as well. Her works illustrate the typical social phenomena in contemporary Japan, which is many ways have influence cultures around the world through its technology and culture exports such as, needless to say, manga.

Interview of the artist by Moderna Museet, 03.02.2009

Projected images which Lang has taken around the venue/neighbourhood in the past few weeks

Gallery owners Squid & Tabernacle (left & middle) watching Liane Lang (far right) explaining her work to the audience

The next stop is Dalston, and we're at an empty yard area around Hartwell Street where Squid & Tabernacle's pop-up gallery & the Dalston Barn are situated. Liane Lang's photography is on projection inside a container at the yard. She expressed her joy to us when speaking of the project to take photos around the space. Because of the transient nature of the space, the physical settings change every minute so anything she captured could be gone the next time she came back.

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Dalston Barn

The Dalston Barn co-ordinator (please leave comment on his name if you know, thanks) introduces the project to visitors

This is a community project which involves local volunteers and talents to materialise a park/event space/passage connecting different parts of the neighbourhood. A truly meaningful project which provides a sense of belonging ad ownership.

Dalston Barn - video link

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28.05-04.07.2010

Momoko Suzuki (鈴木桃子) creating her piece on the wall as we visited the gallery

WW's Debra Wilson and Chiara Williams are both practising and exhibiting artists and have also curated a number of successful exhibitions, on and off-site, including a collateral event at the 53rd Venice Biennale and featured several times in TimeOut First Thursdays.

This group show has a selection of works from 17 artists with the theme "Time". The 17 time-keepers and chroniclers in this exhibition explore the theme through sculpture, painting, video, photography, print, drawing, installation and time-based performance.

Japanese artist Momoko Suzuki was creating site-specific pencil drawing in the gallery at the time we are visiting. The sense of motion of the pattern she drew resembles a fleet of jellyfish in the water. It enhances the art flavour of the space and make it more like an artist's studio than a victorian house.

The Koukan gallery is currently showing her work until 23.07. 

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Full photo set here

Further Readings -
The Big Society begins in Dalston by Keiren Long for the Evening Standard, 30.06.2010
Parasol Unit's official twitter
WW gallery's official twitter