Curiouser and Curiouser: Siop Chwilfrydedd

A light touch solu,on to an experimental co-exhibi,on in the outer inner limits of Bangor. Figure 1 the Cabinet Curiosity Shop (inside/outside the cabinet) and 2 Museum/Cabinet, Storiel. Photograph Lindsey Colbourne

The previously ,tled Yours shop is at the same ,me both in the Deiniol Shopping Centre (Figure  1) in Bangor, north Wales, and in Storiel Museum and Art Gallery (Figure 2). It represents the  small cabinet in Storiel but unlike the small cabinet you can get inside it. The Shop/cabinet is  bigger inside than outside, like the Tardis. Together the Yours shop and the cabinet in Storiel  make up part of the cabinet of curiosity.

Figure 2 Inside the Cabinet of Curiosity (Yours shop) in the Deiniol Centre. Photograph Lindsey Colbourne

The shop windows are painted exactly like the Storiel cabinet windows, in whitewash which is  then scratched into with words: ‘AGOR’ ‘CLOSED’ ‘TU MEWN’ ‘TU ALLAN’ ‘(BE)COMING SOON!’.  The paint makes it look like an empty shop, painted to show there is glass in the windows, but  the paint also make it look mysterious, it invites curiosity. Holes have been cleared in the  whitewash to look through. The whitewash creates a permeable membrane, a liminal barrier  through which light and shadows are diffused. It hints at a performa,ve fourth wall; to enter  means to become part of whatever is happening inside, to become part of the art, and part of  the experiment. The cabinet is the art object, a representa,on of the museum in abstract, the  museum/come gallery/come canon. This object is a leaky one, It extends its tendrils into the art  world with all its systems and restric,ons of power and money. To enter the cabinet is  precarious, it is a process. If we are in the museum, it is in its cracks and margins, in a pop-up  crea,ve space in an empty shop in a struggling shopping centre with an enlightened a\tude to  the arts. Our presence in Storiel is equally tenta,ve, taking place in a small cabinet at the foot of  the stairs, in a corridor, with sound pieces inserted into other rooms, echoing our a^empts to be  seen and heard.

The shop is the inside of the cabinet, but also much more part of the outside, in that it is  situated within the community of Bangor, in a shopping centre, rather than in a museum or art  gallery. It is in a built environment, but we are trying to extend our experiment into the more  than human natural world, invi,ng our cousins the plants and creatures into the cabinet, and  into the conversa,ons we are holding.

We can all go inside the cabinet/shop in the Deiniol Centre. We have hung the walls with art and  placed sculptures on plinths. Some of the art will be made by plants. I think we should think of  the shop/siop in the Deiniol centre as an experimental control sta,on or maybe as a laboratory.  We can display things that have been made, and things in the making, in the idea stage,  mutable. We can make when we are invigila,ng, when the shop is open, or just go in at other  ,mes if we wish to do something.

Figure 3 Drawing by Lindsey Colbourne 2024

So, we have three or four plinths to put things on, and white walls, and this flower cart (being  modelled for scale by Amr below) that they were going to take out. But I think it could be rather  good. I have an idea for the cart based on panic and something Lisa was saying about cri,cal  mass and the growth of vines and brambles. I was thinking about nature being one of the  en,,es we are trying to take into account – and to hear - in this expedi,on into, and out of, the  cabinet. Also how we can show that with radical imagina,on. The objects that people have  made so far in the experiment mostly reference, or are comprised of, living or found more than  human beings (which is how I think of plant, animals, rocks and soil) or parts thereof.  Fragments, sounds, marks made from…

The shop could be a place to highlight the important outer limit in a sense of the polarity  between the monolithic inner sanctum of the museum or gallery or cabinet, and the  dispossessed but polymorphous energies in the community, those outside the canon, perhaps  trying to get in, like the wild clema,s invading my studio, or just growing wildly and rampantly in  obscurity.

Figure 4 Amr with the flower cart

I want to fill the cart with the cri,cal mass of growth that Lisa was talking about. I will change  this at intervals while the shop is ours. The first load will come from the clema,s men,oned  above. Others may wish to bring in natural contribu,ons, not just for the cart but for the walls or  wherever. Anything that the more than human seems to be bringing to you. (References to  human dispossession and canonical rejects would also be welcome).

Figure 5 The wild clemaHs begins to arrive at the shop. Wanda Zyborska 2024. Photograph Lindsey Colbourne

Notes on Cabinet of Curiosity

21 and 28 Sept 24 Speaking with the More Than Human. Anna Powell, Poetry, Introduc,on and  Drawing

Figure 6 Anna Powell Speaking with the more than human Photograph Lindsey Colbourne

Using some sensory techniques in tree-language poetry as a springboard to begin, we will  use intensive focus on plant, stone, feathers and other objects to explore prac=cal ways  of connec=ng with more-than-human elements in nature. We will share our crea=ve  responses to help us think further about how human interac=on with the natural world  might develop. Anna Powell (2024)

I am trying to document the connec,ons of our experiments in the curiosity shop with the  inves,ga,on into (and out of) the cabinet. How do you explain the links between Anna’s tac,le  poetry about speaking and becoming with the more than human, and the art world? To put  Anna's sessions in the context of the cabinet, I am thinking her poe,cal inves,ga,ons travelled

from far out of the cabinet through geological ,me to the present, and through rocks, leaves and  feathers to form complex pa^erns and sounds of ar,s,c expression. Anna helped us to begin to  understand how to use eyes, noses, voices, limbs and skins and all the systems between that can  help or hinder the understanding and experience of our place in the natural world. I'm not sure how far it penetrated into the cabinet, or to the heart of it, but it inhabited its imaginary outpost  (or inpost) in the Yours curiosity shop.

25 Oct 24 Drawing Flow and Splash Kar Rowson, Lisa Hudson, Steph Shipley

Two tables covered in paper right by the open doors and a welcome sign. People already  drawing and dripping and blowing paint and ink in spidery maps and en,,es across the paper,  where there is s,ll room to join in and add to the crea,ve chaos, too much colour for me! 

I try to add some darkness. 

There is space to enter unno,ced and wander about looking at things. One poor woman is half  recognised by us and I think frightened out of the shop by my a^empts to include and  remember her. My cri,cal friend poo poos what we have already done, then comes back, starts  looking and joins in. He covers a cheeky pine cone that invited itself that morning with paint,  and rolls it all over the map, marking out his territory on the collabora,ve lines of flight that  cluster and flow in between the white spaces.

2 Oct 24 Finding We Have Wings: A Treasure Hunt. Steph Shipley and Kar Rowson

Finding We Have Wings! Come to the Deiniol Centre at 1pm tomorrow (Wednesday 2 Oct) to  find hidden treasure! Is it in the Cabinet Curiosity Shop? Or is it in the Cabinet Storiel? What are  we looking for in a cabinet/shop/gallery/museum?

Figure 7 Lindsey Colbourne 2024

I've just looked at the hiding places or clues for Steph Shipley’s happening in the Curiosity Siop.  They are really beau,ful. The clues are works of art in themselves, as Kar Rowson's are, in her  case hidden in li^le books. The answers to Steph’s clues are in the shop, and the answers to  Kar’s are in the Museum. This treasure hunt of Steph and Kar’s brings the two (there are more  than two) polari,es/places together in a playful and material way. 

I am really enjoying all this mind stretching ambiguity or is it crossing borders? Si\ng in  between things? And where is the art? Is it in the museum or in the Shop? Is it the things that  look like art or the photos of things that look like art? Is it the conversa,ons about the art? Or  the other conversa,ons about life and care? On the way into and out of the museum/cabinet, in  the Siop, which is not a gallery. But is, sort of, and also a laboratory and a place to drop in and  visit and maybe do something which might just be an opportunity to draw or paint, when you  haven't done that for a long ,me, or do regularly, or a place to talk and listen in a less everyday  kind of way. To listen to experimental poetry that explores inter-species boundaries and material  and sensual encounters. To take ,me to look at a shield bug or a leaf or stone and feel their  energies, to imagine their ,me zones and existen,al concerns. To think about these en,,es as  crea,ve, as ar,sts and fellow collaborators, and/or as art works. And to play some games and  think about colour and texture, line and composi,on. 

And, if you iden,fy as an ar,st, to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it? And  is it any good? And can you afford to live? And do you have something interes,ng and arty to  wear to the next opening? And will anyone no,ce and see what you are doing? And will they  remember you? And will there be anywhere safe to live and talk and remember and think and  make art?

Figure 8 Brambles (kept out of the cabinet) Wanda Zyborska 2024

Wanda Zyborska