Invited mentor at the World Ceramic Biennial, South Korea, 2012.

1st Latvian International Ceramic Biennial, Mark Rothko Arts Centre, Daugavpils, Latvia.

Permanent collection.

Invited artist at the International Terracotta Symposium, Eskisehir, Turkey, 2012. Commissioned to make the Armchair for the Municipal Headquarters in Eskisehir.

Private commission from the Geology department at Pomona College, California, USA.

Private Commission.

Villeneuve-sur-lot, France.

Handgrenades and Auberines

The Weapons Project: a collaborative durational performance/exhibition in The Looking Glass Bristol June 1st – 16th 2012, by Artists Amber Ginsburg, Rodney Harris, Joseph Madrigal.

Entering The Looking Glass (a former hotel bar closed for 13 years following a murder on the premises) is like walking into a strangely surreal timeless space. There is nothing for sale, yet the performance takes the form of a vegetable market, displayed in the gloomy dark brown stained Victorian aura of a haunted forgotten space long closed down.

The gallery is situated next to St Nicholas Market in Bristol, a long established centre of traditional street market stalls, yet here the crates contain the unexpected.

Upon closer inspection the displayed vegetables are in the form of bombs and grenades made of clay, organically decaying and pushing out from beneath their surfaces are vigorous energetic seeds of hops, wheatgrass and lupins among others.

Visually, the derelict bar is a place of commerce, yet here the exchange is imaginative not monetary. An opportunity for interpretation, to reinterpret the space and the forms the artists and visitors are creating. To some visitors it is an unexpected confrontation with their expectations of what’s on offer,

“What beers do you stock?’,

is met with the answer that many of the seeds growing here can be turned, eventually, into alcohol!

To other visitors the show is initially a delightfully poetic undoing of sinister imagery, which upon further investigation reveals more than a simple politic.

Amber, Joseph and Rodney have created an ongoing commitment. In some exhibitions the artists’ commitment ends at the opening night. In The Weapons Project the commitment begins at the opening and never ends. Each morning and throughout the weeks the artists have to tend, water and plant new works. They become in service to the art objects who are the guests in The Looking Glass hotel bar, drinking water and nutrients and becoming plants.

The dynamic of service is disrupted, plants are guests, artists and visitors willing to assist in the maintenance and creation of the objects, in service. When walking in a visitor might be asked if they would like to water, seed or produce a clay weapon. On the closing day visitors are asked to return to help disperse the weapons and subsequently share the ongoing commitment for the development and sustenance of the plants.

After closing the space returns to its gloomy, empty and timeless quiet existence. The Weapons Project becomes a fading memory, can we ever be sure that it actually happened?