Above: Screenland, 2006, photo of gallery installation, Whitstable Museum and Art Gallery. Mike Coles, Whitstable Posters, 2006, Horsebridge Arts and Community Centre.
Working with Canterbury City Council, Shea Debnam Associates has developed two editions of CD:EK, taking place in 2005/ 6 and 2009/ 11
Read about the second edition
Read about our approach to project managing CD:EK
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Curatorial Development in East Kent (CD:EK)
First Edition 2005- 06
The first edition of CD:EK was as one of 19 high-profile cultural projects commissioned by Canterbury City Council as part of its Make it Real initiative. The initiative formed part of the National Urban Cultural Programme (UCP) which provided £19.5 million of National Lottery funds for cultural projects across the UK.
The edition involved nine early career curators who were mentored by established national and international curators and writers, Raimi Gbadamosi, Simon Grennan and Angela Kingston over a period of ten months whilst creating exhibitions and commissioning new works of art at three East Kent galleries, George’s House Gallery in Folkestone, Whitstable Museum and Art Gallery and the Horsebridge Arts and Community Centre in Whitstable.
The key curatorial outputs of the first edition were:
Horsebridge Arts and Community Centre Mentees Paul Russell, Pat Wilson Smith & Clare Smith worked under the curatorial guidance of artist Simon Grennan.
The Horsebridge team’s exhibition focussed on the main gallery space at the Centre. It featured newly commissioned work by celebrated music-cover designer, Mike Coles; and an interactive piece by the collaborative partnership of Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, alongside a site-specific installation by artist Lucy Willow at the local Sea Scouts Hut – with the over-arching theme of the artists’ response to Whitstable.
The team worked with the tightest timescale of any of the groups, delivering their project in under 5 months. Alongside works in the main exhibition, Mike Cole’s work included a series of posters and fliers distributed about the town. The team also produced a concise, professionally produced guide to the project and the exhibiting artists, including text by the team.
Georges House Gallery Mentees Polly Read, Ben Kidger and Scarlett Rickard worked with artist/curator Raimi Gbadamosi at Georges House Gallery, Folkestone, the creative base of Strange Cargo.
The resulting exhibition, Cordial, opened in March 2006, as the inaugural event of the newly renovated gallery space. Featuring the work of six contemporary visual artists; Tanya Axford, Ruth Hopwood, Matthew de Pulford, Jamie Reid, Greg Stobbs and Felix Zakar, the exhibition sought to investigate the three interrelated concepts of liminality, rebellion and conversation. The project’s work also encompassed a one-off live music and screening event at The Chambers Bar in Folkestone, and the publication of a book, also entitled Cordial, featuring critical texts by Raimi and the Mentees.
Whitstable Museum and Gallery Mentees Paul Hazleton, Maria Bilske and Hannah Ledsham, were supported by writer and curator Angela Kingston.
The work of the Museum team culminated in Screenland, an exhibition of contemporary artists’ film and video work related to the theme of landscape, which opened in June 2006, alongside the 2006 Whitstable Biennale. Featured artists included Peter Collins, Joe King and Rosie Pellow, Emily Richardson and Semiconductor. The team’s work included a three hour screening of selected artists’ moving image works, an informal gallery talk, and nature walks. The team also produced a concise flier / guide to the exhibition.
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