PSC’s first Residency in a Record Store provided an artist, John Lawrence, the opportunity to access Flashback Records’ three stores and to be based in their Shoreditch location for a month. Working on a schedule to accommodate his other commitments, the artist explored the record store context as inspiration for a new piece of work. A £500 budget and a production month at the end of the in-store period enabled him to develop a sculpture, with curatorial and production support from PSC. The result was then installed back at Flashback, Shoreditch for a month-long exhibition.
The 2015 winner John Lawrence produced a video installation. Taking into consideration the particular nature of Flashback Records as an active site, and its newest location on Bethnal Green Road, the resulting artwork uses video to explore how music displaces bodies and objects in physical space. Analogue concerns are placed centre stage as we are reminded how records, using energy to spin; and collections, needing space to be stored both relate to our own embodied experience.
Residency period: 9 March – 2 April 2015
Exhibition: 8 May – 10 June 2015
This opportunity was possible thanks to the generous support of Arts Council England and in partnership with Flashback Records.
Selection Panel 2015
Marsha Bradfield / Lucy Tomlins: PSC
Paul Luckraft: Curator, Zabludowicz Collection, London
Sven Mündner: CCI Consultant and previously Co-founder of Hannah Barry Gallery and Bold Tendencies, London
John Patterson: Manager, Flashback Records, Shoreditch, London
Live in-store gig by HENGE
Late-night opening Thursday 7 May 7-9pm
John Lawrence is a London-based artist whose work deals with the mediation of contemporary experience. Moving across text, object, video and print, he reconfigures familiar cultural tropes to offer up new readings and open out meaning through popular language. John studied at the Royal Academy Schools and alongside his practice, he organises the touring project After/Hours/Drop/Box, which commissions new work at the intersection of music, video and live performance, as well as …Or maybe it’s the same for everyone a print platform for artists’ short fiction and experimental writing. At the time of writing he is currently one of 14 associate artists undertaking the public event and study programme, Open School East.Recent shows include Outpost Members’ Open 2015 selected by Martin Westwood; Exeter Contemporary Open selected by David Shrigley, Ceri Hand and Matt Burrows; Oriel Davies Open (Overall Prize winner), Oriel Davies Gallery, Wales; FOAM, a touring project by Mat Jenner; Pre Owned: Looks Good Man curated by Morgan Quaintance, Cell Project Space, London and Nothing Compares 2 U with Hannah Perry, Mark Dean and Jaakko Pallasvuo, SIC, Helsinki.
Sung/spoken text explored relationships
between analogue technologies
and physical space,
absence,
record collecting,
and the epistemic problems created by physics.
