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Questioning the role of artist and audience

10/03/2004

"A NESTA Fellowship will allow Sonia's work to develop without having to rely on traditional avenues of support."

Tooting-based Sonia is an artist with 20 years' experience, showing in numerous group and solo exhibitions both in the UK and abroad. She emerged as an artist after graduating from Stourbridge College of Technology and Art in 1983. Her early work followed a more confessional and autobiographical theme, drawing on the experiences of Afro-Caribbean women and children living in Britain. Since the late '80's her practice has become less figurative and has included text, photography, wallpaper and sound media.

Sonia now wants to develop her work in collaboration with other artists. In 2000 she worked with three choral groups to produce Choral as part of the Licked exhibition at London's Gaswork Studios. Through this she realised the exciting challenges that making art as a shared activity could bring. It also raised some difficult questions for her as an artist around the question of the role of the artist as a producer of art objects and the audience as passive consumers of that object.

A NESTA Fellowship, over three years, will help Sonia address these questions through a programme of training, artistic experimentation and improvisational collaborations with both fellow artists and audiences. Sonia will work with artists from disciplines similar to her own for the first time, creating new work such as live performances for camera, site specific, digital, 2D and 3D work. She will also present collaborative outcomes publicly, specifically to encourage audience participation, and invite writers and curators to discuss and contextualise the work.

Venu Dhupa, NESTA Fellowship Director, said:

"Sonia's artistic approach sits uncomfortably within the marketplace of commercial galleries and the domain of public galleries and institutions because she is challenging the accepted norm. A NESTA Fellowship will allow Sonia's work to develop without having to rely on traditional avenues of support. This will allow her to continue questioning the legitimacy of the unique, art object; the role of the artist as maker of such objects; and the role of the audience as a passive consumer of the completed object."