Seran Kubisa

Projects

 

2010 ‘Mystères des Mémoires’ Winning Laureate commission

 

Cave Installation with village forensic investigation, Mid-Pyrenees, France. Installation materials: wood, beams, florescent lighting, LED’s, UV, lenses, gold & silver leaf, Perspex, pigments, glitter, rice, paint and transparent household materials. 

 

2010-2013 ‘Recall’ Development of projections with sound and film, Lottery funded through Arts Council England. 

 

A 45-minute film of object memories with the object fragments revealing a wider story of location, place and time. The investigation unpicks the objectʼs story and journey from the past to present with information collected from the historian and contributor when the fragment is taken.  “Each sample has an inherent memory that my ʻstolenʼ fragment contains. This memory is still contained in its physical structure and worn influences of time. Those fragments, touched by the original owner, have absorbed their own story ready to be released through these processes” - Seran Kubisa.

 

2007-2011 ʻTreasure Island: A Forensic Investigation of a Cityʼ Arts Council and SEEDA Arts + Development and Final Award for Innovation.

 

This investigation led to large-scale projection work, the film 'Recall', exhibitions, installations and designs for the public realm. It involved 250 people, 12 organisations and 5 historians. A social dissection of a city through five years of investigations and 160 microscopic artworks created through the use of traditional fine art approaches combined with new technology. This consititutes one of the largest innovative archives in the U.K. The investigated artefacts range from 1545 to 20th Century. 204 Artefacts are catalogued and fragments collected. The aged fragment is scientifically analysed for fluorescence and its physical worn influences, allowing resonances of the past to seep into the analysis and creative process. Archived on cityforensics.com with interactive ‘collecting memories pages’. 

 

Partners: Portsmouth City Council. Development Award - £10,000 and Final Award - £50,000; Project Patron - £25.000; Historians - support in kind.

 

2008 The installation ‘Sacred Eight’ with ‘Collecting memories’ at Portsmouth Cathedral

 

Installed 8 human scale steel tombs set in the Cathedral's architecture, inspired from the artworks and archives of ‘Treasure Island’. Perspex, gels, gold & silver leaf and innovative materials of household items, crystals, rice on steel light box systems. materials: florescent lighting, LED’s, UV, lenses, Perspex, pigments, glitter, rice and paint. The microscopic artworks were projected onto the interior architecture. 2nd best exhibition Hampshire 2008, as voted by the public

 

‘Collecting memories’ used steel box systems with colour gels and salt allowing you to draw directly with the salt crystals. Funded by Portsmouth City Council. 

 

2001-2002 Leverhulme Trust Residency Award. School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton Neuroscience.

 

Observing regular presentations, internal research meetings and methodoloy of science technology.  Used the confocal laser microscope to explore samples of differing ages revealing structures of an invisible world. This led directly to the use of this technology in the development of new work in the public realm (see: 'Treasure Island'). The investigations into neuroscience influenced new work in technology, paintings, light sculptures and installations. Art and science workshops were delivered in London and the South.  

 

1996 Southern Arts Award - ‘Oscillations’- Quay Arts Centre

 

A performance collaboration with writer/poet- Harriet Kline, dancer/choreographer- Eckhard Thiemann and musician - Henley Smith reinterpreting Kubisa’s solo exhibition ‘Champagne supernova’.