THE

INDEPENDENT ART SCHOOL

Plan B, Hull, Humber Mouth Festival,
November 2003.

Building Blocks, Artranspennine_03,
Hull, July 2003. Photograph: Philip Barnes.

PIPPA KOSZEREK

Researcher in Planning

Personal profile:

Primary Planner for the Hull Independent Research Centre, Pippa Koszerek is currently drawing up many lists.

With a background in video and live art, Pippa's current practice takes her into the realms of the Town Planner as she explores outdoor environments, subtly altering spaces for the passer-by to happen across.

A member of the 54°N art collective, she was part of the fundraising and curating team for its large festival in Hull, March 2003. The collective will be exhibiting together in September 2004.

Pippa is also involved, alongside artist Justine Blau in making collaborative art works and developing networks with artists in Luxembourg.

www.pipart.org.uk

editor@independent-art-school.org.uk

Over the past two years the work I have made has primarily responded to outdoor sites and their specific contexts. Influenced by a fairytale aesthetic I have created works that people will 'just happen across', works that hint at infinite possibilities, that surprise, discomfort or introduce a magical element into everyday journeys.

Influenced by Performance art and Situationism I alter public spaces whereby a performance is created through the passer-by's interactions with it. I hide lawn turf and flower beds along an area of overgrown and derelict land, rebuild walls with mass produced plastic objects or alter a dilapidated but still used Sensory Playground. Often there is a specific context or recent history to the area on which I draw; however these changes are done with a sensitivity to the aesthetics and spatial peculiarities of each place. Each response is intuitive.

Sensory Playground (October 2002): During my residency at an artist-run space in the middle of a large mental institution I became fascinated by the play equipment in a sensory playground. Although patients still wandered around it, the site was becoming derelict with overflowing bins, broken glass and discarded beer cans. The equipment itself although once having an art therapeutic value, was mostly broken. They appeared to be absurd abstract shapes (not unlike sculptures). I was interested in reflecting the dejected atmosphere, the emptiness and the absurdity of the environment. I collected materials from around the grounds of the Institution (old metal frames etc) and the rubbish from the sensory playground, and made my own brightly painted playground equipment for it instead. These were purposefully useless, but from far off fitted in with the original infrastructure.

Plan B (November 2003): Installed on an unused area of land in Hull City Centre, Plan B mimics regeneration signs, whilst abstractly suggesting that the viewers themselves could use the site, for play - perhaps.

I get excited by the unexpected, by brick walls and everyday spaces, by areas that are often overlooked. Likewise, objects that circulate in everyday usage excite me; stationery, cheap plastic toys and household objects that are taken for granted. I am interested in how humans relate to nature by changing it. My use of outdoor spaces reflects not only this, but also my own queries and need to understand. There is an increasing fear of the unplanned that pervades in our society, from our work routines to children's play. My practice is concerned with this, in that it seeks out ways to create the non-homogenous and to subtly cause a delight that can't simply be described as 'leisure'.