We are open this Sunday 27th September 11am-5pm for more ‘Brocki’ fun

Just to remind you we are open this Sunday 27th September 11am-5pm for more ‘Brocki’ fun and we would love to see you. Thank you to all the people who came last Sunday. It was real fun. And thank you to all our artists who have worked so hard to make the ‘Brocki’ so great.  I’d love to sell the inflatable dinosaurs. They are a wonderful collection but are now outside our collecting remit.

dinos

Inflatable dinosaurs: various species

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View in the gallery with my work, Freddie Robins, Dale Devereux Barker, &Sara Impey,

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View of the barn with Dale Devereux Barker, Rebecca Weaver and Lucy Tiffney round the corner

Mollie

 

Simon Collins’s painting ‘Mollie’ with a Dale Devereux Barker print. Amanda Emery’s Ford Falcon put together by Simon Emery

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The Blackwater Polytechnic presents ‘Brocki’* An Open Studio event

You’re invited. Please come.

20th & 27th September 2015 11am-5pm

at Feering Bury Farm Barn, Coggeshall Road, Feering

Colchester, Essex CO5 9RB blackwaterpolytechnic@gmail.com

In 2012 just as the barn was approaching completion I began a conversation with the curator Sarah Schuster about how to show the products of those disciplines: construction, farming, forestry, art, craft and collecting, together. She was living in Zurich at the time and sent me this email from which I am quoting, introducing  the ‘Brockenhaus’. In this Open Studio event we have finally approached the concept of the ‘Brocki’.

*‘Enter the Swiss wonder that is the Brockenhaus, or Brocki for short. Brockis are like massive permanent flea markets/charity shops/warehouses of junk/curiosity cabinets all rolled into one. Brockenhaus translates literally to ‘chunk house’. I like this. Chunks. Filled with chunks.

Brockis themselves are wonderful places to be. Most of them, it’s like stepping into a building sized pile of junk and good luck wading through for treasures, then you find a few and take them to the till and the woman behind it consults some incomprehensible pricing system, or just charges you whatever she feels like, which is never very much at all… So, what I’m thinking is a Brocki, but with all the crap weeded out. I love the idea of a museum, but hesitate on the use of the word museum as it implies a space where you look but don’t touch, and definitely don’t buy.  Maybe the museum has a shop, or maybe it is feeling very cranky and thus de-accessioning its entire collection… Anyway, I see a sort of non – gallery.  A place of treasures big and small, to be wandered through, wondered over, explored, and piece by piece bought and taken home. Something that might look jumbled at first but feels right. It has an underlying logic.’

Sarah Schuster 2012

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We have finally managed to haul most of our collections out of storage and into display cases. In so doing we have de-accessioned a fair few objects that will be available to buy at the Open Studio. Our good friend Rebecca Weaver who is an antique dealer is going to bring some of her stuff to sell to add to the jumble.

As in the original ‘Brocki’ plan we have ART too.  Simon Collins is a powerful documenter of his very personal pilgrimage in paint.

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Simon Emery continues to wow us with shiny, glittery car parts.

Dale Devereux Barker is a polymath athlete of image-making based around print-making.

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Sara Impey will be showing new insightful poems of, and in, stitch.

Dutifully useful (1)

We have Justin Knopp, of  Typoretum, one of the UK’s foremost letterpress artist, making prints on site and selling his work.

Charms (2)

We have drinks supplied by Company: Movements, Deals and Drinks which is a long-term project by international artist group Myvillages which links North and South Essex through fruit picking.   Their blackcurrant cordial is made with our blackcurrants.

Charms (1)

We have a reprise of the hugely successful Lambros Café run by 11year olds. Freddie Robins won’t tell me what she is doing. There are also some paintings and objects made by me…

We are proud to be part of Colchester & Tendering Open Studios weekends

http://www.colchesteropenstudios.org Go see more!