News

06.05.2022

augment: ‘an increase, growth’

A ‘new kind of garden’ brings imagination and innovation to Hull: Augment represents the best in collaboration, combining child-like investigation and digital world-building software to bring something really special to Princes Avenue. It’s an augmented community garden - made to be enjoyed by everyone, whether you’re a young person, or looking to re-connect with your inner-child. In a unique collaboration between multidisciplinary artist Ellie Niblock and 87 Gallery Explorers, Augment offers a tangible link to the digital and imaginary. The virtual installation is a new kind of garden, linked to our physical space. It utilises experimental ways of creating to enhance our community through the addition of a ‘green space’ where we can reflect and explore. The work is a playful foray into the ways in which children create uninhibitedly, and serves as a reminder of the value of process and play for our mental health. Augment serves as a permanent time stamp of both our current technology and the individual Explorers’ creative decisions at this specific point in time. In addition to the garden, Augment also presents three new sculptural works by Ellie Niblock which reflect on the possibilities of how materiality and technologies can alter our perception of experiences.

08.04.2022 - 11.06.2022

A collaboration between multidisciplinary artist Ellie Niblock and 87 Gallery Explorers, Augment offers a tangible link between the digital and the imaginary. The virtual installation reimagines the Gallery’s front and back gardens. It utilises experimental ways of creating to enhance the local community through the addition of a green space where we can reflect and explore. The work playfully alludes to the unrestricted ways in which children create, and reminds us of the value of process and play for our mental health.

Explorers began the project by working with Ellie to capture textures from the garden. These textures were incorporated into sculptures which were scanned and extended using game development software to create two computer generated worlds. You can access these worlds by scanning the QR codes around the building using your personal devices.

In response to the outcomes generated in collaboration with 87 Explorers, Niblock presents a new series of bold, tactile sculptures that simulate the garden in an alternate world, breathing unknowable life into the space. The formations are placed in the studio space like foreign objects that have sprouted accidentally. Clues to their origin are found through the QR codes that are built into the space, acting as a host for digitised versions to be experienced. They also activate the garden, blending both worlds together, creating a hybrid space.

‘Augment’ runs until 11th June 2022, at 87 Gallery.

Ellie Niblock is this year’s UAL Art for the Environment Residency artist at YSP, initially spending two weeks in November living and researching on site. She is making video and audio content about her time with us and posting regular updates on the app.

In response to the grounds of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, I will create a series of sculptures utilising the remains in my environment, with the combination of my intuitive and material processes. Exploring how the organic and the synthetic interact with one another, through the use of Lidar scanning, I will digitise the sculpture park environment and construct digital microscopic entites, making the intangible tangible.

Three artists from Northern Ireland will compete for the chance to create the UK’s next major landmark on Sky Arts’ ‘Landmark’ show.

Hosted by Gemma Cairney, Landmark sees three artists from different regions in the UK go head-to-head for the £200,000 funding to create a permanent piece of public art in 2021’s UK City of Culture, Coventry.

Photographer Stephen Wilson, inventor Paddy Bloomer and sculptor Ellie Niblock will star in Monday night’s Northern Ireland heat — the fifth in the series.

Each artist was given £25,000 to create a temporary piece of public art to submit to the judges. The winner will then move on to the grand final.

Press

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/down/three-ni-artists-go-head-to-head-for-the-chance-to-create-new-piece-of-public-art-40913276.html

https://artuk.org/discover/stories/landmark-on-sky-arts-northern-ireland

Ellie Niblock, MA Fine Art graduate at Central Saint Martins has been selected for the AER residency Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Set up by Professor Lucy Orta UAL Chair of Art for the Environment - Centre for Sustainable Fashion in 2015, The Art for the Environment International Artist Residency Programme (AER) provides UAL graduates with the exceptional opportunity to apply for short residencies at one of our internationally renowned host institutions, to explore concerns that define the 21st century – biodiversity, environmental sustainability, social economy, and human rights.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) is the leading international centre for modern and contemporary sculpture which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2017. 

Ellie Niblock is a Northern Irish artist based in London. She will be creating a colourful mixed-media sculptural installation of imagined sea creatures, surfacing from the Lagan. The pieces were created in response to interactions, conversations and clay sculptures made with members of the public who work, rest and play along the River Lagan.

Supported by Belfast City Council

https://maritime-mile.com/belfast-maritime-weekender/quayside-family-fun/