Like Love

Like Love was a series of three exhibitions by Boyce at Spike Island, Bristol (3rd October to 29th November 2009), Bluecoat, Liverpool (30th January 28 March 2010) and The Potteries Museum and Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent (3 July to 30 October 2010). The three exhibitions resulted in a series of residences and engagements with groups, all culminating in the monograph 'Like Love' (Green Box Press, Berlin).

The first of these projects, Like Love - Part One, which produced nearly thirty artefacts, was organised by Spike Island as part of their Spike in the City programme. Out of several conversational meetings with young women from the Meriton School for Young Parents, a new body of work was made that included drawings, prints, hand-made wallpaper and an animation. Central to Boyce's practice is the act of working with other people in what she terms 'improvised collaborations'. She has taken extracts from conversations with these young parents to create a visual and textual dialogue that speaks of desire and insecurity. Through choices of typography Boyce has re-interpreted quotes to create a series of artworks that produce a fragmentary experience of longing and raise wider questions about the nature of due care in contemporary life.

A selection of the work from Spike Island toured to partner venues the Bluecoat, Liverpool and The Potteries Museum & Gallery, Stoke on Trent, who in turn set up their own collaborations, generating new elements for their installments of Like Love. No one manifestation of the show is therefore the same and the accumulative processes and encounters of Like Love are documented in the monographic publication. 'Like Love' was commissioned by Spike Island and was an Arts Council England National Touring Exhibition in partnership with the Bluecoat and The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery.