Event

Heather Phillipson: Dream Land

Friday 16 June 2023 - Saturday 1 July 2023

New Commission for Art Night

On this page
Date
Friday 16 June 2023, 12:00 - Saturday 1 July 2023, 17:00
Location

Cooper Gallery
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design,
13 Perth Road,
Dundee,
DD1 4HT

Price
Free
Booking required?
No

Exhibition opening times
16 June – 1 July 2023
Monday – Saturday, 12–5pm

In June Art Night comes to Dundee and Cooper Gallery are delighted to be a partner.

We're excited to present Dream Land, an exhibition of new moving image work for Art Night by Turner Prize nominated artist Heather Phillipson.

Dream Land is a new commission by Heather Phillipson which incorporates archival BBC wildlife footage, recast as hallucination. Opening with its bug protagonist sucked through a vacuum cleaner nozzle, the film lands us in an alternative world which resembles our own but as if broadcast from another dimension. Remixing and revoicing remarkable scenes from innovative 1980s nature documentaries Supersense and Life SenseDream Land presents earthly life as a dream, accessed via the bizarre and precious lives by which we’re surrounded. Its leading characters shape shift between species and environments, reprogrammed to form an alternative narrative. Creatures appear as interlocutors, harbingers and guides. In parallel, it is scored with a soundscape, composed by the artist, that samples the crackles of wildlife into a strange new music. 

Co-commissioned by Art Night and the Art Fund as part of their Wild Escape programme, Dream Land will be exhibited at Cooper Gallery supported by Art Fund. Art Night will then gift the film to The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum’s permanent collection. 

Hear from Heather as she talks about the process of making the film in this video.
 

Events

Exhibition Preview
Friday 16 June, 6–8pm

A first look at the major new commission by artist Heather Phillipson with a drinks reception by 71 Brewing serving alcoholic draft beers. Non alcoholic options will also be available. 
 

Art Night Dundee
Saturday 24 June, 12noon–Midnight
Mourning Ritual: 8.30pm & 9.30pm

The exhibition will be open throughout the evening of Art Night and punctuated by Mourning Ritual, a new audiovisual event in which the artist speaks live over sampled musical refrains, acapella vocals and the calls of critically endangered UK birds. Mourning Ritual has been composed by Phillipson as a 'sonic summons' - an attempt to communicate with the spirits of departed animals. Mourning Ritual is co-commissioned with Art Night and Cooper Gallery and supported by the DJCAD Centenary Trust.
 

 My Eyes Become Ears | Drawing Workshop
Thursday 29 June, 6-7.30pm

A participatory drawing workshop designed by DJCAD MFA Drawing students open to all ages. Engaging with drawing in a way that incorporates all of our senses, the workshop invites participants to question the strange ways we move through and interact with the world. How can the process of creating drawing emulate the ways in which all living things move, grow, and transform? 

All events are free, open to all and unticketed.

Artist's Biography

Heather Phillipson’s audacious and wide-ranging practice often involves collisions of wildly different materials, media and gestures in what she describes as ‘quantum thought experiments’. Phillipson was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2022. In 2023, she will present a new commission for the Imperial War Museum/14:18 Now Legacy Fund at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea. Recent solo exhibitions include: THE END, the Fourth Plinth commission, Trafalgar Square (2020-22); RUPTURE NO.1: blowtorching the bitten peach, Tate Britain, London (2021); Almost Gone, an audio collage for BBC Radio 3 (2020); The Age of Love, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2018); and my name is lettie eggsyrub, a major public commission for Gloucester Road underground station, Art on the Underground, London (2018). Recent group exhibitions include: British Art Show 9, UK touring (2021-22); Bodies of Water, 13th Shanghai Biennale, China (2021); Garden of Earthly Delights, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2019); Leaving the Echo Chamber, Sharjah Biennial 14, UAE (2019); I Was Raised on the Internet, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018); Frieze Projects, New York, USA (2016); INCERTEZA VIVA (Live Uncertainty), 32nd Bienal de Sāo Paulo, Brazil (2016); and Performa, New York (2016).

Phillipson received the Film London Jarman Award in 2016 and was awarded the European Film Festival selection at the 47th International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2018. She is also a musician and award-winning poet and has published five volumes of poetry. 

Artist's website

Partner Biography

ART NIGHT

In 2021, Art Night went national for the first time, engaging with audiences at a range of museums, galleries and outdoor spaces across the UK as well as being open to audiences globally through a series of newly commissioned online works. In 2023, this format will be developed further, and cemented with a biennial festival.. Since 2016 Art Night has commissioned 60 new artworks and attracted 300,000 live audiences, 800,000 digital and an additional 2 million via touring, museum acquisitions and national projects.

Art Night was set up in 2015 by Philippine Nguyen and Ksenia Zemtsova. The original four festivals took place in partnership with art organisations in different parts of London and were guest curated by leading UK based curators - The ICA and Kathy Noble (2015); Whitechapel Gallery and Fatos Uztek (2016); Hayward Gallery and Ralph Rugoff (2017`). In 2019, Art Night appointed Helen Nisbet as Artistic Director, her first festival took place in the outer London borough of Waltham Forest to coincide with the Mayor of London’s first Borough of Culture before the first national Art Night festival in 2021.

Art Night invites artists to make ambitious, durational and performative work for non-traditional public spaces. Previous artists making major new commissions for the festival include Barbara Kruger; Joan Jonas; Zadie Xa; Cecile B Evans; Imran Perretta and Paul Purgas; Linder; Celia Hempton; Mark Leckey; Christine Sun Kim; Frances Stark and Anne Hardy.

Follow Art Night on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @artnightuk #artnightdundee
#artnight2023

 

Access

Cooper Gallery is located to the right side of the DJCAD buildings on Perth Road. The entrance is via double doors which face onto a car park.

The gallery is on two floors. Ground floor has ramped access. First floor is accessible by an internal lift and six steps with a handrail. Wheelchair access is via a stairclimber. Please email in advance if you require lift or stairclimber access.

First floor is also accessible via 24 steps. Two flights of 12 steps with handrails are separated by a landing.

The moving image work has English captions.
The exhibition has low lighting.
In the second floor gallery there is an uneven floor surface with accessible routes through.
Seating will be available, if required, please ask a gallery attendant.

For all enquiries please email: exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk

Content Note

The exhibition has flashing images.

Toilets

The ground floor has a wheelchair accessible toilet. The toilet is gender neutral.

Interpretation

Large print versions of the exhibition information handout are available, please ask our Guides. If you require alternative formats for material in exhibitions please email or ask our Guides.

Image credit

Heather Phillipson, Dream Land, film still, 2023. Image courtesy Heather Phillipson with footage courtesy the BBC archives.

Installation photography by Sally Jubb.

Funding 

Cooper Gallery is a parter of Art Night Dundee.

Dream Land is a co-commission by Art Night and the Art Fund. It forms part of Art Fund's Wild Escape programme. A live event is co-commissioned by Art Night and Cooper Gallery with support from the DJCAD Centenary Trust.

logos Cooper Gallery, DJCAD, Art Night, Art Fund, Wild Escapes, McManus, 71 Brewing
Enquiries

Cooper Gallery

exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk
Event type Exhibition
Event category Design and Art