20th October 2022 6.00-8.00pm
Towner Gallery, Ground Floor
Devonshire Park
College Road
Eastbourne BN21 4JJ
Image credit: Judith Alder, Dead or Alive? - frog.
For our October BMN event we were delighted to be joined by artist Judith Alder who gave us a fascinating talk ‘Dead or Alive?’.
We were shown examples of work that spanned across a range of media and processes, which included collections or installations of objects, images and drawings animated with sound, light and moving image. The talk plotted the development of Judith's ideas over many years, on how things grow and change over time and how science, nature and technology collide in today's world.
Judith Alder, holding the rock that first inspired her work for 'Dead or Alive?'
Judith Alder works across a range of media and processes to make drawings, objects and moving image which reflect her interest in how things form, grow and evolve. Her work often mirrors processes of evolution as she revisits and re-configures past work into new forms. Over nearly 20 years practicing as an artist, Judith has played a leading role initiating and managing numerous artist-led projects, working with arts organisations, galleries, universities, schools and museums, and collaborating with scientists, geologists, ethicists and academics to develop the research which informs her work. Alongside her artistic practice, she was a member of a-n’s Artist Council and a team member of Full Frontal Eastbourne from 2019 - 2022, advocating for art and artists in Eastbourne and beyond. Judith is currently developing work for a solo exhibition, Vital Signs, at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists gallery in February 2023. The work stems from research encompassing topics ranging from origins of life theories to geological deep time, from Primo Levi’s story of Carbon to Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, and explores the networks, meshes and connections which form the structures of our world and of our lives. Some years ago Judith visited artist Andy Holden’s exhibition, Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, in which the artist explored ideas about the laws of physics as seen in cartoons - a place “where it seems like anything might be possible, but not everything is…” Holden posited the suggestion that “maybe there is no such thing as an inanimate object”, an idea which Judith has been thinking about ever since.
You can see highlights of Judith's talk below.
