The Rea Garden Artist Project Space

The Rea Garden is an out door artist project space situated in the heart of Digbeth, Birmingham. It was sealed off for almost 20 years as the site of a burned down industrial unit, which uninterrupted for the duration of this time, was allowed to transform into an overgrown wilderness.

Throughout  2008 Behind Closed Doors were working in the space on the project The Secret Garden which was supported by The Custard Factory and funded by Arts Council England. The Secret Garden Project explored their intervention of this space, documenting their actions and how they affected and transformed it in both factual and fictional ways. The project culminated in a clearing of the site and a series of shipping containers temporarily installed as art works exploring the transformation of the space and housing echoes of what was there before.

The site is now being used by Behind Closed Doors to host ‘The Rea Garden Artist Residency Programme’ – a series of 4 artist residencies taking place from September 2009 and continuing throughout the duration of 2009 and 2010. Each residency takes place for 3 months.  The residencies are selected by  submission process from four individual call outs during the 12 months.

The first artist in residence  was Hannah Hull,  Hannah was at the site from September to December 2009  researching this site of ‘No Special Interest’, in order to give it a dignified and highly personal farewell. For more details of Hannah’s residency  click here.  For further information about the artwork of  Hannah Hull click here .

The second artist in residence was Claudia Borgna. Claudia who was raised in Italy had just finished a series of residencies in USA, Canada and Europe prior to The Rea Garden Residency. Claudia was resident at The Rea Garden throughout the first 3 months of 2010. Throughout Claudia’s residency she created temporary and evolving installations using recycled plastic bags. Claudia’s ‘work entails the investigation of what she calls the “evolution of landscape”, a process started and effected by modern life-styles and consumerism. Her installations are the materialization of an ongoing observation and questioning of how the “plastic” and the natural realms interact with one another and thereby come to create new ephemeral orders’. For further information click here.

The third artist in residence at The Rea Garden was Brigid Mc Leer.  Brigid’s work ‘explores questions of time, embodiment and contingency through various media and approaches, including video, installation, drawing and text. Brigid’s project at The Rea Garden  responded to the particular context of the site and its surrounding area, and  introduced new readings on to it. Brigid installed a miniature rail track onto the site which was used as a camera track. The piece is inspired by a number of sources in particular James Joyce’s Ulysses and the opening sequence to Jean Luc Godard’s film ‘Le Mepris’. ‘ Brigid’s residency began in April 2010 and culminated in a ‘durational performance’ on Saturday 19th June 2010.  During this ‘performance’ Brigid  read text taken from Joyce’s Ulysses, which was filmed using the track and dolly system installed. For more information about Brigid Mc Leer’s residency click here

Finally the fourth and final artist in residence in this cycle of residencies is Graham Dunning. Graham, a Manchester based artist works primarily with sound. One of Graham’s intentions whilst working at the site is to create works using the shards of shellac which are buried within the ground of the site. These were found by Hannah Hull whilst researching the site during her residency in 2009, Hannah found that the site had previously been occupied by Philips Records in the 1960′s and the shards are remnants from this time.

For further details of Graham’s residency click here.

The Rea Garden is open to the public on Fridays from 11am – 4pm during each residency as well as public openings and events. The artist in residence as well as members of Behind Closed Doors will be on site to discuss the current and previous projects in the space.

The Rea Garden

1 – 8, Floodgate Street

Digbeth

Birmingham

B5 5ST

If you would like to visit The Rea Garden at any other time, or have any other enquiries, please email Arlene Burnett

arlene_burnett9@hotmail.com

or phone 07814929169