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Welcoming our writer in residence for Art from Elsewhere.

Lizzie Lloyd’s work deals in words, yet they are not always presented as you might expect.

Rather than instilling the written word with the authority of a gallery text – adorning walls or in neatly typed handouts – Lloyd chooses to subvert this convention, undermining words’ traditional role as a medium for interpretation in the context of an exhibition.

Words offered as objects are a tricky proposition – even more so when screwed up into a sculptural mound in the corner of a gallery, as in Lloyd’s recent work Drift (2015, Safehouse, London). For Mark My Words (2014–15, no format gallery and Plymouth Art Weekender) Lloyd threw 10,000 pages of text on the floor in a gesture reminiscent of a leaflet bomb. Here, the recklessness of the action undermines the care with which the text is crafted with each page containing words in the form of poetry.  Her words are not easily either perused or consumed. Lloyd’s audience is asked to work a little harder – a struggle which echoes the hard fought battles that considered words undergo before finding themselves on a page. In doing so Lloyd encourages us to overstep the familiar boundaries to which we have grown accustomed when encountering both art and writing. We are invited to touch, to take away rather than leave behind, to tread on rather than skirt around, and therefore alter rather than leave in-tact.

Based in Bristol, Lizzie Lloyd is a writer, artist, translator and visiting tutor at University of the West of England. She is a regular contributor to Art Monthly, This Is Tomorrow, Aesthetica, Artnet and Frieze. She is completing a doctoral thesis on art writing and subjectivity at the University of Bristol.   

“I’m thrilled to have been invited to take up the role of Writer in Residence and excited that Arnolfini is making available this kind of provision to emerging writers.  There has, for some time now, been talk of the crisis of art writing but positions like this residency make proactive steps towards opening up and broadening the kinds of words we encounter in a gallery setting.  I can’t wait to get started!”

Look our for Lizzie’s blog posts and a special event in July.

 

Take a look at Lizzie’s work here.

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