OVERVIEW

 

 

Based in Frome, Somerset, Foreground is a new commissioning organisation established to realise significant contemporary art projects in the South West and develop new, socially diverse audiences for critically engaged contemporary art through accompanying outreach and education initiatives.

Foreground was founded in 2008 by the independent curators Simon Morissey and Tabitha Clayson.

Foreground receives no revenue funding and must raise 100% of its costs through fundraising.

Foreground are generously sponsored by Forward Space  

Projects

 

 

 

 

For 2009 Foreground presents Independent State  a major participatory visual art project that celebrates Frome’s reputation for independence.  Foreground has commissioned the internationally renowned artists Edwina Ashton, Bob and Roberta Smith and Matt Stokes to work with groups from Frome’s community from July to September this year to make significant new artworks, which will form entries into the annual Frome Carnival on 26th September 2009.

Independent State explores how we define social distinctiveness and achieve self-determination as individuals and communities. The new works will take a number of different forms, from eccentric historical celebrations to major collaborative performance that will culminate as floats, performances and demonstrations in the Carnival.

Carnival is one of the most distinctive features of Somerset’s cultural identity and generates huge popular audiences to witness its grass roots creativity that range from the spectacular to the eccentrically amateur. As the first carnival in the Somerset Carnival season, Frome Carnival is one of the smallest yet generates an audience of over 20,000 people in a single night.

Keep up to date with the project’s progress ad forthcoming events here and find us on Facebook

Independent State has received funding to date from The Arts Council England South West, Somerset County Council’s Local Initiative Budget, Market Towns Regeneration Fund and County Arts Fund. The project has also received further support from The Ernest Cook Trust, Frome Community Lottery, Mendip District Council, and The University of the West of England.

 

 

In 2008 Foreground produced Intervention/Decoration – a major multi-sited exhibition set in the historic market town of Frome, Somerset, featuring commissions by internationally recognised visual artists Eva Berendes (Germany), Michael Dean (UK), Ruth Ewan (UK), Jim Isermann (USA), Cornelia Parker (UK), Lawrence Weiner, (USA) and Richard Woods (UK). Intervention/Decoration explored how artists use decoration and intervention to challenge our expectations and inspire our visions of what is possible in public spaces.

Sited throughout Frome, the artists’ commissions transformed established cultural venues in the town, opening private sites and animating public places. Drawing on the rich social, industrial and architectural fabric of Frome, the artworks imposed new structures on radically different spaces, from established galleries to neglected buildings.

Although the terms intervention and decoration both have an established relation to ideas of public space, they would commonly be understood to be the opposite of each other. Intervention/Decoration sought to collapse this polarity with decoration used as a radical intervention in the fabric of the town and interventions as celebratory as they are challenging.