Archived exhibition

Tracy Mackenna & Edwin Janssen: NO MORE LYING

Part of ISAM DUNDEE 2015 Culture and Arts Festival at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design

NO MORE LYING
Tracy Mackenna & Edwin Janssen

An exhibition project with an associated public events programme

No More Lying draws on familial experience of living with an alcoholic parent, translated into an installation that combines a variety of artefacts, images and a narrated text. It is intended as a ‘conversation piece’ that invites reflection on the effect of alcohol dependence syndrome on children.

Mackenna’s narrated artistic writing accompanies a display which is presented in an intimate environment and that takes on the metaphorical capacity of a memento mori, reminding us of our mortality and of the fragility of human life.

Re-configured objects transcend their routine significance to evoke the natural disorder and dilemmas inherent in remembering. Within No More Lying these charged pieces play the role of conduits for intimate experiences, oscillating between history and memory. Recollections of a house, a location or a tree are at once soft and imprecise; they are made manifest here through representations in concrete materials. As things with emotional relationships ascribed to them, and invested with new significance, they bring into being an awareness of absence and the insistence of the past in the present. Although particular to an individual, their potency lies in their ability to ‘belong’ to everyone, to commemorate multiple places, occasions and experiences.

Through the making of this work the artists have probed what the purpose and value of art might be in dealing with difficult subject matter and its potential as a vehicle for rebalancing psychological frailties.

No More Lying incorporates public events and has been developed in the context of The Museum of Loss and Renewal, Tracy Mackenna & Edwin Janssen’s durational project that creatively explores issues around wellbeing, end of life, material culture and memory.

No More Lying is open at Centrespace, VRC, Monday - Saturday, 12-4pm.

NO MORE LYING and other stories
Seminar, Tuesday 6 October, 2-4pm
Centrespace, Visual Research Centre

Tracy Mackenna & Edwin Janssen will discuss the development of their exhibition project, the personal experiences that informed NO MORE LYING and the role of artists in mediating issues around wellbeing.

Artists' Biography

Tracy Mackenna and Edwin Janssen have collaborated since 1997 after meeting as participants in the biennial Manifesta1, before which each had solo careers.

Mackenna's solo exhibitions include ‘BULK’, Barbican Centre, London, ‘Tracy Mackenna’, CCA Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, and ‘Purposeful Invisibility’, Arnolfini, Bristol. Selected publications include ‘BULK’, Tracy Mackenna, London, Barbican Centre; ‘Not a Shred of Evidence’, ‘Tracy Mackenna’, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick,; ‘Tracy Mackenna’, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; ‘Purposeful Invisibility’, Tracy Mackenna, Arnolfini, Bristol. Individually, she continues to explore the role of (performative) writing in visual art and the inter-relationships of text and image, and her research focuses on the mediation of history through personal archives, migratory aesthetics, and gender within collaborative practice. She is a founding Director of Glasgow Sculpture Studios.

Janssen had numerous solo exhibitions in galleries and museums such as Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands; Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany and Wiener Secession, Vienna, Austria and participated in many group exhibitions. In 2002 he curated ‘Commitment’ (Las Palmas, Rotterdam), a presentation of works and projects by 120 visual artists, designers and architects who work in the Netherlands, commissioned by the Foundation for Visual Art, Design and Architecture, Amsterdam. He is interested in museum culture and his research explores curatorial practice, institutional critique, visual interpretation and cultural recycling.

Work is held in public and private collections including Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich; Twynstra Gudde, the Netherlands; Child Protection Agency, the Netherlands; Arts Council of England; The Contemporary Art Society; Scottish Arts Council; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; The Henry Moore Institute Library.

Both work for Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), University of Dundee, Scotland. Mackenna holds the Personal Chair of Contemporary Art Practice and is Director of the MFA Art, Society & Publics. Previous posts include Dean of DJCAD (Acting), Associate Dean Art & Media, and Head of The School of Fine Art. Janssen lectures in Art & Media, prior to which he was Chairman of the Visual Arts Award Panels at the Foundation for Visual Art, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB), Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has also been a lecturer and programme leader at the Academy of Art and Design, Arnhem, the Netherlands. Janssen’s PhD research area is artist-led curatorial practice.

ISAM DUNDEE 2015 Culture and Arts Festival
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee

Unique to ISAM DUNDEE 2015 World Congress, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD) launched a programme of exhibitions, artists’ talks and workshops to engage delegates attending the ISAM DUNDEE 2015 World Congress, and the local community with a variety of design and art work relating to issues surrounding substance misuse. The intention of this programme is to engage the local community with ISAM DUNDEE 2015, promoting a legacy of work that will endeavour to change the lives of people, locally, nationally and internationally and enrich the scientific programme of the congress.

The ISAM DUNDEE 2015 Culture and Arts Festival promotes a synthesis of art and design thinking through a partnership of science, design and art. There is a growing culture whereby art and design is used to facilitate the communication between communities and groups within our cities, through social engagement. Although the focus of ISAM DUNDEE 2015 World Congress is clinical and scientific, the art and design projects facilitated wider community engagement for before, during and after the Congress.

Find out more about:

ISAM Dundee Culture and Arts Festival

ISAM Dundee 2015

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Twitter: @DJCAD @ISAMDundee2015

The ISAM Culture & Art Festival has been sponsored by D.C. Thomson Ltd. and Dundee Alcohol and Drug Partnership.