RESEARCH
bob fearns
My current research is concerned with experience and representation of inner city space in terms of cultural, personal and historical difference, explored through my practice as an artist. In my 'Inter' project I collaborated with a Romanian artist, and with galleries in Bristol and Iasi Romania, to investigate the manner in which verbal descriptions of streets and buildings are recreated as images by people who have never seen them, especially people from a distant country and culture. The project resulted in two exhibitions, a series of talks and presentations, a catalogue published by ROOM BOOKS, a 6000 word essay for publication, and a paper delivered at the Transversalities conference at Reading University. Digitally produced images made for the project are also exhibited separately.
In production is a 25min film on the demolition and rebuilding of Bucharest, focussing on the impact the obliteration of 40,000 houses and many historical and religious monuments has had on the city and its inhabitants. Using a technique of part documentary and part evocation, the film uses Bucharest as a large scale example of broader issues of home and identity.
Two large scale public sculpture commissions have been completed, both of which use the previous history of their reclaimed post industrial landscape as a means of re-informing a sense of place.
Off The Map (2006)
Recent exhibitions and publications
- 2005 - Inter. ROOM Gallery Bristol. Vector Gallery Iasi Romania. ROOMBOOKS ISBN 0-9549915-2-4
- 2005 - Visual and Verbal Description. Transversalities Conference. Reading University
- 2005 - Narrative Sculpture Garden, Portishead Portmarine. Supported by Continuum Public Arts for Crest Nicholson Developments
- 2004/5 - Arts Council Award £5000 Director of Picture This, Moving Image Agency
Inter (2005)