from submission to exhibition

As the Summer pushes along and with the New Graduate Award intensive weekend and Sonic Arts Weeks complete; we’re getting ready to bring you Middlesbrough Arts Week 2024 (which is closer to now and not so far in the future as September is round the corner)

While you wait for the announcement of this year’s NEOC artists let’s take a recap from last year’s open call with an account from artist Liberty Hodes as they outline their experience participating in last year’s festival.

I loved being a part of MAW 2023. When I saw the call-out with the theme, Measure, I thought about a work that I had made as part of my MA final show in 2021 that had never been performed due to Covid - Things with Lyrics That May Be True, a performance art work where four people dressed as anthropomorphic standing stones sing a score of folk music that glitches through landscape and memory. I felt that the theme resonated well with the ideas behind the work so I talked myself into applying. I’m so glad that I did, as many artists do; I find applications to be incredibly daunting, talking myself out of substantially more applications than I actually submit. I appreciated the accessibility of the application process, one shorter email application initially, with shortlisted applicants invited to write an in-depth application – it didn’t feel as overwhelming a process as many other application processes. I was incredibly pleased and quite surprised to be selected as one of the open call Artists, and it felt particularly meaningful to be able to finally show the work that I had made in the pandemic that felt so unresolved.

The process of getting ready to show the work began in late summer. I took my camera to Middlesbrough and walked around a lot, getting some footage of the Middlesbrough landscape to put into the video that stood behind the costumes in the installation. The work itself had developed through a lot of walking-as-research; exploring the intertwined relationship between humans and landscape, drawing parallels between Stone circles and man-made concrete structures. I particularly enjoyed seeing the giant looming presence of the cooling towers, which felt almost as if they had their own mythological folklore. 

Working with curator Penny was a dream. It was great to be supported to look at the work from different angles and keep exploring and developing it – and I felt that Penny had an instinctive sense of what worked, suggesting that one of the performances take place in an underpass – which turned out to be my very favourite iteration of the work. It felt refreshing to be encouraged to keep a playful approach, and to react to the locality of Middlesbrough, and I think the work was all the better for it. 

Together with three of my friends who are also Artists and Performers – Jenni, Zoe and Amy, we spent several evenings rehashing some of the vocal scores from the original piece, whilst also using existing folk songs and improvisational strategies to co-create new strands of it, and it was great to all be there together for the opening, and to feel the buzz of all of the things happening around us. Walking around Middlesbrough and stumbling across exhibitions in units in shopping centres, the town studded with so many brilliant and surprising interventions and art-works, was one of my most inspiring experiences of the last year. It felt like an excellent example of how to programme something that feels at once radical, grassroots and of the highest quality. A particular highlight was getting to take part in the performance night alongside Bordello Collective, with their immensely interesting work responding to Gordon Matta-Clark, and Saeborg, whose work involving a giant inflatable latex pig was mind-blowing and had my brain fizzing for the entirety of the last train home. Actually, upon reflection, I don’t think I’m quite over it to this day. 

It was an honour to be asked to be a part of the judging panel for the second round of applications - I had never been part of a process like this before, and it widened my perspective to be able to see the process from a different angle. In advance of the judging session, we had time to familiarise ourselves with the 18 shortlisted artists and their works, and make notes on each application. There was an incredibly strong set of applications, with a wide scope of themes, disciplines and approaches, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the proposals and seeing the different work. It was interesting to see how undercurrent themes within applications could shape the overall feeling of a final selection. The final judging panel consisted of; Penny Payne: NEOC Curator and Artist, Katy Morrison: Curator, researcher and co-director of Pink Manchester, Garth Gratrix: Artist, curator and founding director of Abingdon Studios Ltd, Helen Welford: Exhibitions and Collection Curator, MIMA, Niomi Fairweather: Curator Team Leader, Baltic, Rose Mcmurray: Assistant Curator, Baltic, and myself. It was amazing to be part of a panel with many people who are part of organisations who make up the excellent contemporary art scene of the North. During the judging session, I enjoyed hearing the different insights from the other members of the panel who each brought their own experiences and subjectivities, and I felt like I learned a lot! Congratulations to all the selected artists - I’m so excited to see the work all together in situ, and to see how the work develops in the process! 

I was also struck by the reality of just how many applications an open call receives - (the NEOC received 200 applications in total!), and the high volume of very many talented Artists in the mix. Keep applying, keep making and developing your work, and keep going! (Advice I am sternly trying to take on myself as an oft-rejected application writer!!) 

Since Maw ’23 I was in a group show called Displayful at Scarborough Art Gallery, working with their collections, which was incredibly interesting as I love objects and history! Recently I’ve been in a quieter period of research, development and experimentation – continuing my work around demolition and queer bodies through the lens of performance and folk culture, who knows what is next!