Ruth Beale & Karen Mirza
The Voyage of Nonsuch Events

Sea Cadets Hall

17:00-18:00 Saturday 19 June

Social History and Telling Tales

With local historian and film collector Tony Blake

Sea Cadets Hall

16:00-17:00 Saturday 3 July

I'm unpacking my library, yes I am
Roundtable discussion. Confirmed panel members: Will Fowler, Ben Cook, Karen Mirza, Ruth Beale

Artists Ruth Beale and Karen Mirza’s collaboration for Whitstable Biennale 2010 has been developed through a two-year research project and special-access research residency in the BFI Archive. Over two weekends they will head events that will expand on their ‘Voyage of Nonsuch’ project. On the opening weekend of the festival, Beale and Mirza will host a programme of vintage films with local historian and collector Tony Blake. On the final weekend, they will co-chair an open seminar to explore the role of the archive in contemporary artist practice. The seminar will be a chance to discuss the research strategies of many of the works in the festival as a whole. This event draws upon Beale and Mirza’s respective practices as artists who regularly employ dialogue and events-based platforms within their work.

An artist working across the formats of curating, publishing, performance and the fine arts, Ruth Beale has shown work independently, collaboratively and as part of group projects at The Royal Academy of Arts (London), Space Gallery (London), The University of Edinburgh, SE8 Gallery (London), Glasgow Project Room and doggerfisher (Edinburgh). Her ongoing programme of thematic discussions, ‘Miss B’s Salons’, was part of the ICA’s Nought to Sixty programme, and since 2008 the salons have been situated in various private and public sites across Europe and the UK.

 

Karen Mirza's artistic practice is based on collaboration and dialogue. This manifests itself in a multi-layered practice of filmmaking, drawing, installation, photography, performance, publishing and curating. Her work is engaged with challenging and interrogating concepts such as participation, collaboration, the social turn and the traditional roles of the artist as producer and the audience as recipient. During a recent residency in Karachi, Pakistan, Karen Mirza & Brad Butler developed the 'Museum of non Participation' an Artangel Interaction commission. Other recent projects include All that Remains... the Teenagers of Socialism at Waterside Project Space April 2010, 'The Institution As Moment' at The Global Art Forum, Art Dubai March 2010, and their most recent film The Exception and The Rule was nominated for Transmediale award Berlin November 2009.