FAKERS: Podcast
Words on Cypher Billboard’s offsite exhibition project FAKERS, on at Thames-Side Gallery in Woolwich, London, at the end of 2018. The show brought together eleven female artists whose work demonstrates a deep understanding of technical process and explores how their contemporary methods are able to question and redefine historical and gendered notions of the term ‘craft’. Exhibiting artists were: Victoria Adam, Amba Sayal-Bennett, Cecilia Charlton, Lauren Godfrey, Holly Graham, Erin Hughes, Lauren Keeley, Milly Peck, Scarlett Platel, Rhea Storr, and Reina Sugihara.
This podcast features audio extracts from a tour of the show delivered by participating artist Cecilia Charlton, a reading of an essay on the historical gendering of craft by Adriana Blidaru, and conversations surrounding the making of the exhibition itself; alongside readings of text-based responses to ideas of contemporary craft, written and spoken by other artists with work in the exhibition. This includes conversations around language explored through moving image by Rhea Storr, Foley navigated through routed plywood in the work of Milly Peck, and a playful studio alphabet compiled by Lauren Keeley to sit along-side her precisely assembled screenprint on fabric works, reminiscent of upholstery. The audio provides a method of documenting the exhibition and enabling others to access a version of it remotely.
Full list of contributions, in order of appearance:
- Threads of Interest Tour – Cecilia Charlton
- Studio Alphabet – Lauren Keeley
- FAKERS In Conversation – Holly Graham, Erin Hughes, Amba Sayal-Bennett
- Craft Affect – Adriana Blidaru, read by Holly Graham
- “An impact sound may be necessary…” – Milly Peck
- On Subtleties Or Soteles – Holly Graham
- An Adequate Language – Rhea Storr
- Fish Food (Fountain) audio extract – Lauren Godfrey
- “lord make me pure, but not yet” – Scarlett Platell, read by Cecilia Charlton
- “intestinal knowing quest” – Victoria Adam
- “There’s a redemptive quality in a labour of love” – Erin Hughes
The FAKERS: Threads of Interest podcast was first broadcast with rtm.fm, a radio station based locally to the gallery, set up by TACO, Thamesmead, in 2018.
Image: Milly Peck, The Physical Layers In The Actual Action, 2018, and An Impact Sound May Be Necessary, 2018 [detail]. FAKERS at Thames-Side Studios Gallery, 2018. Photo © Scarlett Platel.