Past show: The Human Condition Project @ Patrick Studios

The  group exhibition saw personal responses to the concept through a range of approaches and narratives reflecting on what it means to be human. A range of free talks, activities, and an experimental music event took place throughout the duration of the exhibition.

The launch event on 10th August 2016, was attended by around 45 people to explore themes of mental health and consciousness in The Human Project’s main group exhibition featuring photography, painting and collage alongside performances by Sophie Macwhannell, Oliver Knight and more discursive interventions from Tea & Tolerance.

“This is the start of an ongoing project on the theme ‘The Human Condition’, and I look forward to exploring more in future events. Art is a fundamental form of human expression, and can be used to highlight current issues and concerns; though it’s good to remember that without political or social change nothing is achieved! Art is essentially useless in and of itself, as Oscar Wilde succinctly put it,” said curator Rachel on the opening night.

The project continued with an artist’s talk from Bruce Rimmel, which proposed a counter response to the much hailed ‘the death of painting’ as laid out in his new book ‘Liminal Contact: A Cognitive and Anthropological Response to the ‘Death’ of Painting’.

Then, local graffiti artist Tom Crowe took paint to Patrick Studios internal walls, leading a workshop on “one of the oldest forms of uncensored human expression”. The public was also given a chance to participate in Kerri Butterworth’s paperwork and movement, before a plethora of sound artists and musicians took over the studio space for an experimental music experience on the closing night.