Weekly Blog 15: Artists and the Bluecoat Building
posted 02 Jul 2020
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Spring 2021 - Suki Chan 'CONSCIOUS'
- Sat, 27 Mar 2021 - Sun, 13 Jun 2021
- 11.00 AM - 6.00 PM
We are excited to be collaborating with London based artist Suki Chan on her new interdisciplinary project which includes a strand of research about dementia; in 2018 Chan was one of a number of artists invited by Bluecoat to work in Belong Villages - villages set up to allow those on a dementia journey to live the fullest and most social life possible. Her residency was part of Bluecoat’s embedded Where the Arts Belong project supported by the UK wide Celebrating Age, a fund established by Arts Council England and Baring Foundation specifically to support innovative approaches to engaging older people with the arts.
Suki Chan presents CONSCIOUS, a multi-platform project bringing together diverse, subjective perspectives of scientists and ordinary people, whose stories unwrap layers of thinking and preconceptions about individual and collective consciousness. Comprising a series of films, moving image installations and a VR experience, CONSCIOUS explores the nuances of what it means to be conscious in a technological age.
The work includes documentary testimonies from people living with dementia, neuroscientists, computer scientists, pilots, historians and beekeepers, along with soundtracks composed by award winning TV and film composer Dominik Scherrer.
The exhibition will launch on Fri 26 Mar 2021
More about the artist
Born in Hong Kong, 1977, Suki Chan is a London based artist and filmmaker. She is a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art. Her practice is research-based and features dialogues with specific communities such as commuters, skaters, meditators, ophthalmologists and scientists.
She has filmed in diverse locations and sites including contested sacred sites in the Middle East; Senate House Library in London; Hagia Sofia in Istanbul; and rammed earth roundhouses in Yunnan province associated with her Hakka heritage in China. Chan’s work has been shown nationally and internationally including the Museum of London, David Roberts Art Foundation, London; Centre for Contemporary Chinese Art, Manchester; Art Basel Hong Kong, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, China; Frost Science Museum, Miami, US; Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan; and Dr. Bhau Daji Museum, Mumbai, India.
She first presented work at Bluecoat in Liverpool Live, for the 2002 Liverpool Biennial, commissioned by Bluecoat and Live Art Development Agency. Chan’s work is included in public and private collections in the UK and USA, including the Museum of London, David Roberts Art Foundation, The Ingram Collection and The Celebrity Art Collection on The Solstice ship.