Programme

Layla Curtis is a British artist with a significant international profile. Extensive travel has informed much of her work, which explores the notion of boarders and boundaries, both physical and metaphorical. The artist’s early cartographic work, developed during a residency at the Akiyoshidai International Arts Village, Japan, has become iconic but Layla’s ongoing investigation into our sense of place has led to a combination of new technologies and extreme sports.

Polar Wandering, a psychogeographical exploration of the artist’s movements from London to Antarctica, and Message a in Bottle: From Ramsgate to the Chatham Islands both use GPS technology as a tool to create drawings. In the case of Polar Wandering the GPS tracks the artist’s own movements across the globe resulting in a 27,856 mile long drawing - while the journey of an inanimate object, guided by the wind and the tides, creates the drawings in Message in a Bottle. Traceurs: to trace, to draw, to go fast, investigates a similar notion of border crossing and journeys through a smaller geographical area. Using a heat sensitive camera Layla filmed the movements of parkour practitioners (traceurs) as they disregard established boundaries creating their own alternative routes through the city.

Storey Gallery has commissioned Layla Curtis to develop a project, which uses as its starting point Lancaster and the surrounding area. During initial visits to the city Layla became interested in the boundary created by the castle walls. Historically setting the political boundaries of the community within its walls, a defensive structure that exists to simultaneously protect and restrain.

Dates: Dec 08 - ongoing