Public Encounters exhibitions

James Canty, Liene Rumpe and Kristine Daukste

Helen Scott Lidget Award

The Award was created in 2017 in partnership with Acme and Central Saint Martins and provides vital support for students’ transition between MA study and the world of professional practice.  The Helen Scott Lidget Award provides a CSM graduate with valuable support, including a rent-free studio for 12 months, provided by Acme Studios and a bursary of £5,000. Mentoring opportunities, both from a professional artist provided by Acme, and from the Helen Scott Lidgett Fund Committee, are also awarded to the lucky recipient.

This year for the first time the prize has been jointly awarded by ACME CSM and Latvia Academy of Arts with 2 graduates sharing the prize:  Kristine Daukste (from Latvia Academy) and Lisa Marie Harris (from CSM).

Public Encounters: Restaging

Saturday 9 October 12–5pm, The Crossing, Central Saint Martins, Granary Square

Presenting new collaborative works addressing the history and context of public art by MA Fine Art students and graduates from Central Saint Martins and the Art Academy of Latvia: a series of temporary installations will be installed on Granary Square.

The project extended the dialogues initiated within the exhibition ‘PUBLIC ENCOUNTERS: INVOLVEMENT’, currently on show at Art Station Dubulti in Jurmula, Latvia, which focussed on individual works by the 12 participating students.

While the works presented in Latvia addressed and critiqued discourses of the monumental or memorial through a variety of experimental forms, in London the focus was shifted onto the site or staging ground of the monumental itself. A temporary plinth and flagpole was installed on Granary Square and the students collaboratively created works on site, in response to these two symbolically loaded and archetypal public platforms. Exploring their problematics, they sought to reinvent, challenge or subvert the languages of presentation implicit in these forms.

PUBLIC ENCOUNTERS began in January 2021 with four lectures and discussions organised by the Latvian Academy of Arts and Central Saint Martins.  Talks by Krista Burāne, Esi Eshun, Deniss Hanovs, Dean Kenning, Sergejs Kruks, Līga Lindenbauma, Paul O’Kane and Alex Schady explored existing and historic funding models, the toppling of public monuments, the power of political art, and discovering new space for Public Art. The exhibition continued these conversations.

The participating artists were:

James Canty, Kristīne Daukšte, Zemin Chen, Katerina Geiduka, Laura Šterna, Liene Rumpe, Yu-Shao Lo, Olga Meļehina, Lauren Goldie, Eleni Maragkaki, Elīne Buka and Viktorija Balasova.

PUBLIC ENCOUNTERS was Initiated and has been co-ordinated by Kristaps Ancāns (Art Academy of Latvia), Alex Schady (Central Saint Martins), Marc Hulson (Central Saint Martins), Inga Steimane (Art Station Dubulti) and Louisa Minkin (Central Saint Martins)