OFF GRID was founded and is curated alongside fellow artist Julie Rose Rahbek. This project is a continuous biannual exhibition which takes place around abandoned outdoor spaces in Glasgow. The focus is to show and incorporate work in relation to the space. We aren’t trying to replicate a white walled clean gallery space, it was about exploring a new location we had found which often has a lot of history as Glasgow is full of these abandoned spaces which are uninhabited we thought we would take advantage of them and celebrate how beautiful the city is with its rich history. So therefore exhibiting work in collaboration with it.
But not necessarily creating new work for the show, it can be anything you’ve made throughout you’re artistic practise. As the show is normally a 3 week turnaround. We do a post on instagram with an open call with a 1 week deadline, to make sure that as many people can be involved from all walks of life. Whilst we also put posters up around the city for those who may not have social media. Then 2 weeks organisation for the show, for it to be at the end of that week.
We see it as an opportunity to show work you wouldn’t have shown in a public context, with every medium welcome and encouraged so there is a broad range of work on display. The exhibitions last only for a day, so its only a short amount of time and more of a happening. The places I find to do the shows are often from derelictglasgow.com and do have a short time left. Most of them are set to knocked down or redeveloped, so doing shows in these spaces for a day to celebrate them and create something is really special.
We try to include the local community of where the exhibition is held by putting up posters around that area specifically, which with this show was successful because we had some people who were waking by come and take a look, asked what we were doing and were intrigued. This is always nice because I can see how these shows can be seen as a classic rhetoric of art school students coming into spaces and taking them over, which is something we really try to not be. By the shows only being on for an afternoon I think this communicates this idea, we aren’t taking them over. Next week something else could happen there. As with the last show we did it was an empty space under the M8 motorway, but now even two weeks after it has turned into a DIY skatepark. No one owns these spaces, they can be used for whatever.