Made for You

work created for shopkeepers in Parson Cross by artists Kate Genever and Steve Pool from THE COLLABORATORS. From 19th to 28th October \ Open Wednesday to Friday 11am to 4pm \ Private View and Panel Discussion on Friday 21st October, 6 to 9pm

Made For You is a collection of artworks made as part of a long-term ongoing artist residency on the Parson Cross estate of Sheffield. The pieces shown here are the second edition of works installed in shops on Buchanan Road and Margetson Crescent in Parson Cross. The first editions are installed in their respective locations and were commissioned to meet a need expressed by the shopkeepers. The images of old Parson Cross, for example, are in the ‘English Café’ and create a talking point according to proprietor Deniz with people trying to locate their houses and guess the location.

When asked: "Why they had made two of everything"? Kate and Steve replied "The same objects have different meanings in different situations, we hope people will think about context and place, the fact that there is no such thing as a neutral space, this is something this work explores”. Kate and Steve as part of their research are funded by Yorkshire Artspace through the grant received by Paul Hamlyn to explore how artists operate and situate themselves and their art within a community context.

Kate and Steve’s work is dialogical, site/community responsive and collaborative. By trying to be ”artists in the world not just artists in the art world” their practice is not driven by object outcomes but in by an attempt to “do the right thing” in a given situation.

Miwon Kwon (author of One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity, MIT Press, 2002) argues that - community-specific work takes critiques of "heavy metal" public art as its point of departure to address the site as a social rather than formal or phenomenological framework. The inter-subjective space created through these projects becomes the focus and medium of artistic investigation.

Kate and Steve worked with all the shopkeepers in Parson Cross to find relevant individual solutions and feel these conversations and dialogue are central to the work. As such both artists will chair a panel debate and discussion in relation to site specificity and dialogical working as part of the exhibition opening on the 21st October. All Welcome.