Samuel Mercer

Left Lion Profile

2007-12-20T19:10:00.000-08:00

Tether Festival. Nottingham

2007-10-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

4^th to 25^th November

Throughout November, venues across Nottingham city centre will play host to an ambitious new showcase for the visual arts – the Tether Festival.

Galleries, shops, cinemas and some more unusual venues will present a wide selection of exhibitions, one-off performances, events and screenings. There will also be a publication of specially commissioned creative writing.

The Tether Festival aims to promote the talents of the young creative workforce within the East Midlands, while building upon what is an already a vibrant arts scene.

Artists involved in the festival have been encouraged to create experimental and innovative art works, with the emphasis placed on collaboration.

The organisers of the Tether Festival, Hugh Dichmont and Samuel Mercer, both graduates of Nottingham Trent University, are passionate about involving the local community in the festival and particularly showcasing the work of the local student population.

Hugh: "At a time when the cultural landscape of Nottingham is changing – and the city faces a transitional period as new art galleries and art buildings are developed – we feel the time is right to promote local talent and the wealth of exciting art activity underway in our region."

Samuel added: "We hope the Tether Festival will inspire the people of Nottingham to learn more about the city's role as a thriving, supportive environment in which to be creative, a place which truly raises the aspirations of local cultural practitioners."

One of the main purposes of the festival is to give students an insight into the organisation of public art events and first-hand experience of showing the visual arts in the public realm. The organisers hope it will create a platform from which Nottingham can retain more of its talented young graduates in the future.

For more information, www.tether.org.uk.
Download full press release including listings of all events here (.pdf)

Dependence Day

2007-06-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

Degree show is over, but everything is continuing. For the first exhibition since graduating, we are turning our house into 'The House of God' and putting on Dependence Day.

From the press release:

God is great.
At The House Of God, only great things can happen.
In our own, special Gods we abide; and on this, Dependence Day, 3rd July we will shine like the eyes of a deity.
In work which tells a story of a multiple artists' residency, spanning one academic year at the House Of God, Premier Road said
"Let there be light?"
And there was light, and lightning, and the creatures ran and hid and things in the house... changed, inside and out.
The five young artists, Katherine Webborn, Matthew Cooper, Samuel Mercer, Daniel Kemp and Benjamin Hargrave, who have shown nationally and internationally, in exhibitions spanning faiths from Christianity to Judaism and beyond, show their responses to one academic year in The House of God. The theme that runs throughout is one of response to faith (or not) in a God, but in relation to the surroundings in which these five have found themselves.
There will be a selection of carefully created art pieces. Diversity rules with work from installation to spectacle to intervention, these artists present one of the most 'celestial', nay 'HEAVENLY' exhibitions this year. To miss it, is surely to be damned!

Come see the show from the 4th till the 7th July (12-7pm) or the private view on the 3rd (7-10pm)

Spectacles

2007-04-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

"Curated by and including work by Matthew Cooper, Samuel Mercer and Hannah Phillips. Different practices collide and negotiate for territory in a collaborative, interactive and performative exhibition that draws on ideas of competition and control. The audience is directed through a one way system, removing the common route of negotiating the Gallery Space."

Our show went rather well as the opening exhibition in the Rules of the Game series.
Links : Photos from the artworkornetwork blog by Andrew Pepper | Rules of the Game website which will include the essays commissioned for the series.
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This thursday (7-9.30) is the private view for the art exhibition to raise money for the JNF which myself and Melanie Warner of Bog Standard Gallery are both partaking in. The exhibition will be taking place from 29th April until 1st May from 2.30 - 9.30 each day.

It's all so mundane.

2006-11-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

Not that my work transpires to or is [purposely] influenced in any way or form by the mundane [i don't believe], yet my film 'make your own world', a re-edit of 'god(father)' will be in a new exhibition this week at Victoria Court Interiors, 9-11 Glasshouse St, Nottingham. Open from 23rd -29th from 9-6.

On the 23rd there is a private view from 6-9. Why it's called private i don't know because it'll be disappointing if nobody shows.

Visit the site or the shh... myspace.

The Aliens - Some Thoughts

2006-10-14T05:25:00.000-07:00

"Interesting"

"I'm very enjoy"

"I've been inspired by your view. It makes me possible to see myself in different perspective."

"Can we have somewhere like this in Nottingham please?"

"I don't fully understand but it's not a negetive thing"

The Aliens flyers

2006-07-07T02:06:00.000-07:00

The Aliens

2006-06-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

Quick bit of news. Theres an exhibition in Mogra Gallery in Harajuku in Tokyo next month (July 17-24). Called the Aliens. If anybodys around, check it out. There'll be a launch party on the opening night.
For more information visit the Aliens exhibition homepage here.

Open Campus

2006-06-15T11:22:00.000-07:00

New blog/news center online!
Since creating this new version of z058.com with real content I've tried to add new content.
The latest stuff is a new essay (when I say new I mean written in 2004 entitled 'The Influence of German Expressionism on Film Noir' which is available here, a lovely site dedicated to the French sound artist Christophe Charles and the video from of In Flux (previously Memory) with sound by my brother. These 2 (the video and the Charles site) are for the Open Campus event at Musabi this weekend.