The Keep
An art space initiated in 2015 by Joanna Nelson and byrd as a response to first floor foyer changes in the Centre Cinema Building. In byrd's words:
The genesis of this project has been the diminishing of public spaces within the building used by the architects Joanna Nelson and Ann Cleary. One result being the manifestation of a dead end hallway with one transparent and one opaque wall, at the entrance to the architects' offices. A goal of this project is to not accept the wall and turn it into yet another ‘feature wall’, but to draw attention to how incongruous it is.
Thus the architects invited the graffiti artist byrd to curate a cycle of artistic interventions –rather than a single “solving” gesture to an eyesore [unwelcome rupture] this wall now becomes a catalyst: a field of play, of new ideas, of design potential and remains impermanent.
Byrd’s long-established research practice examines spatial and political activism in the urban setting, and make do & mend hacktavism; manifest in both street and gallery action.
To these ends I have enlisted a number of my contemporaries to collaborate on a series of interventions. Every two months the space will be revisited.
I don’t know what is going to happen. The people I have asked to be involved come from divergent fields, each with strong established practices. A post-graffiti abstract muralist, a gallery based abstract painter, a tattooist, and a performance based colourist, each with a very particular lens on the world.