Beyond the Boundaries

Show online @undertowprojects until Sunday 21 March 2021
Zoom launch hosted by Louise Ashcroft | Tuesday 2 March, 3.00 - 4.30pm

Robert Adlam | Thomas Best | Lucy Bevin | Liz Clifford | Rups Cregeen | Mofe Demuren | Noelle Genevier | Robyn Jacobs | Michael Kelly | Dawn Langley | Li An Lee | Kate Madden | Catherine McCaw-Aldworth | Janet McWilliam | NanoHour | Dana Phillips | Stef Will | Dean Wright

‘There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. [It served as] a line - an idea of boundary. But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing in the world more important than that wall. Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.’ (Ursula K. Le Guin ‘The Dispossessed’)

Beyond the Boundaries showcases the diverse and exciting work created by the postgraduate community of artists at UCA Farnham. In a time of uncertainty and under radical constraints, we have found new ways to communicate and manifest our diverse practices. Exploring newly emerging social and cultural energies, the work seeks ways of transcending conventions, the limitations of ideologies and restrictive belief systems.

In the standard manner boundaries refer to an actual line, marking the limits of an area, but the notion of boundaries extends well beyond this to include the psychological, social and conceptual. The work speaks of our personal space, of the dividing line between cultures, going beyond the limits of the ordinary, and of transgressing social norms. It acknowledges the idea of the liminal - a space in between; recognizing that lives are lived within, on the edge of real or imaginary lines and boundaries.

The work in Beyond the Boundaries investigates the function of borders, crossed thresholds, dimensions of time and confronts our entanglements with technology, our digital past and digital futures. It consorts with notions of the alien, the stranger and the allure of the unknown. It examines a wide range of concepts; of home, place and space, reassessing the dynamics of the private and the domestic, the breaching of natural boundaries through human intervention, and the complexities of chaos and chance, intrinsic to seemingly orderly systems.

Central to the work of the artists in the show is the impulse to explore, to question, take risks, to critically examine and offer insights from both sides of the telescope, of pressing worldwide issues and private human intimacies. From narrative depictions on canvas, to the excavation and representation of objects, the work attempts to find new ways to challenge prevailing conventions. The diverse works in the show communicate a powerful unity in diversity.

To see more work from the artists please find available to download the accompanying ZINE