Examples in Sculpture

During a three month residency at the British School at Rome, Mark Dunhill and Tamiko O'Brian produced work for a group exhibition and publication.

O’Brien undertook the Fine Art Rome Scholarship, a three month residency at the British School at Rome with Mark Dunhill. The proposal for the residency was to devise ways for Dunhill & O’Brien to make new work collaboratively in response to the particular situation at the British School and the wider context of Rome.

One work focused on the problem solving devices employed to achieve a process of genuinely shared workload and authorship; another work involved visiting all of the cultural institutions in Rome to negotiate filming on site while other research was undertaken in to the function and style of the plinths in the various Sculpture galleries of the Museums in Rome.

During the third month an exhibition of recent Rome Scholars and a book launch of the annual Rome Scholars catalogue was held and Dunhill & O’Brien showed their work, incorporating an installation of sculpture, photography and video; a video screening; and a wall based sculpture, alongside works by the five other artists resident in the school.

The opening night and week-long exhibition was attended by approximately 750 visitors. The video work ‘GATES’ was later screened at the Villa Massimo, The German Academy used in an illustrated talk at the British Council by Jacopo Benci, Artistic Director of the BSR, and shown in the exhibition ‘Responding to Rome’ at the Estorick Collection, London.

The British School at Rome provided a residency fee that covered the cost of travel; full bed and board; a studio; a researcher’s museum pass; and art materials for the duration of the stay. The British School at Rome also arranged and paid for the transportation of all of the work back to the UK.

Tamiko O'Brien

Biography

Since 1998 Tamiko O'Brien has been working collaboratively with Mark Dunhill. Dunhill and O'Brien's work has involved large-scale motorised installations, site based works, video, photography, small multiples and posters. O'Brien is also involved in pedagogic research through her involvement in Paradox, the Fine Art European Forum.

Current Research

One of the primary tasks in Dunhill and O'Brien's collaborative practice has been to work out how to make sculpture unhampered by the burden of taste or the 'hand of the artist'. This quest has led them to devise elaborate strategies, mechanisms and processes involving elements of chance, remote control and other peoples' aesthetic decisions.

While their work is clearly concerned with questions of authorship, veracity, 'craftsmanship', the performative aspects of making and the peculiar and problematic status of sculpture it also sets out to reflect upon the nature of human endeavour, aspiration and futility.

Through their art practice and other forms of investigation Dunhill and O'Brien have researched the motivations, issues and dilemmas that arise when artists choose to work together.
www.collabarts.org ,co-edited and curated by Dunhill and O'Brien, was established in December 2005 as a resource and platform for artists, theorists and art students offering a source of information, dissemination and discussion about collaborative art practice.

Pedagogic Research

In 2004 Tamiko O'Brien was a founding member of Paradox, the Fine Art European Forum, an independent network working under the umbrella of The European League of Institutes of the Arts. Since that time she has chaired Paradox meetings and a conference; established the Paradox website http:paradox.wimbledon.ac.uk; co-authored the Tuning document for Fine Art Higher Education in Europe; and been an active member of a European working group considering professional practice in the arts. She is currently working on a CLIP CETL funded research project in to the nature of placements and internships in Fine Art.

• http://www.dunhillandobrien.co.uk/index....
• http://www.collabarts.org
• http://paradox.wimbledon.ac.uk