ART & ITS AFTERLIVES: Would you trust a stranger with your artwork? is an exhibition of works resulting from an intensive, week-long drawing workshop. This focused on collaboration and on ways in which a work of art continues to resonate after its creation. Led by Siân Bowen, AUB Professor of Drawing, participants undertook a sequence of activities which critiqued the disconnected moments in the ‘life story’ of an art object. 

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The eighteen participants included Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) MA in Fine Art, MA in Illustration and PhD students; AUB Alumni and guest artists. The workshop built on an ongoing series of AUB drawing projects, Collapsible Spaces: Places of Temporary Refuge, Camouflage and Ritual, also led by Siân Bowen – the theme seemingly particularly pertinent in these difficult times, whilst collaborative practice provided a meaningful way to connect with others.

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During the workshop, each participant was paired with a partner whom they didn’t know and of whose practice they had no knowledge of. This was in contrast to last year’s AUB collaborative drawing project and exhibition, Mechanical Human Matter, which relied on participants having knowledge of each other’s works and in turn, on choice and empathy. Prior to the workshop commencing, participants made and gifted their partner a finished drawing for them to work on/with – and in return, received one themselves. This was the first step in addressing the question, ‘would you trust a stranger with your artwork?’ The week’s activities were then based on a series of further ‘exchanges’ which took a range of forms – oral, visual, virtual and material.

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ART & ITS AFTERLIVES: Would you trust a stranger with your artwork? tested out concepts of authorship and interpretation. Artistic collaborations are often driven by an inquisitiveness as to what might be revealed by working with another practitioner – this exhibition reflects the openness and generosity of the participants to navigate a range of complex issues relating to critical awareness, trust, empathy and authorship. 

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The on-line exhibition of works from the second in the series, ART & ITS AFTERLIVES: Drawing with Fugitive Materials can be found here.

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Click here for the on-line exhibition of works from the third in the series, ART & ITS AFTERLIVES: Extraordinary Plumbago.