Research Gathering with Bridget Currie and Chloê Langford

"There is something about how it's kind of ugly and sticky and misshapen and almost banal and obtuse. Or obstinate - it doesn't care what I want, it is just a lump. Obstinate Lump."

Bridget Currie and Chloe Langhorn host a research gathering during their Microresidency at FoAM, focusing on the material properties of dough.

Dough resists neatness and control, an aesthetic of the unmade, lumpen and formless. It is an unwieldy mass that provides a physical confrontation with intractable matter. This stuff is not fluid, it is a sticking point for the mind to flow around, and as such acts as a provocative anchor to the mess of the world. Dough is an obstinate medium – it can be anti-architectural and anti-design in its production of form.

We aim to exploit the alien qualities of bread dough to produce sculptural objects, and experiment with the structural and load-bearing capacities of bread dough. Dough as a medium is cheap, living, biodegradable, employs chance, is edible, non-toxic, expands and smells good. Experimenting with the limits of dough, how it can be supported by metal (tins and trays) to build up sculptural forms, how the dough is produced (wild vs. commercial yeast) and what mixtures work best for making these kinds of structures.

Bridget Currie is a British-Australian artist, born in 1979 on Kangaroo Island off the coast of South Australia. Graduating from a Master of Visual Arts at the University of South Australia in 2006 she has gone on to participate in the Research Program at the CCA Kitakyushu Japan (2007-08) and from August 2011 to June 2012 studied at the Kunglia Konsthogskolan, Sweden on a Samstag Scholarship. She currently lives in Brussels. Exhibited widely, her work has been shown at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Art Kitakyushu, Mejan Gallery Stockholm, Artspace, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, The Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Greenaway Art Gallery, GrantPirrie, Ryan Renshaw and numerous other independent and artist-run art spaces internationally. Bridget Currie maintains a website with an active studio diary. For more images and writing please visit: http://bridgetcurrie.com

Chloê Langford is an artist, writer and curator residing between Adelaide (Australia) and Berlin (Germany). She has worked in an administrative and curatorial capacity in several arts organisations including Format (Adelaide), Fontanelle Gallery (Adelaide) and most recently in Agora (Berlin) where she assists in managing an artist's residency program. Her work has been exhibited at the Jam Factory (Adelaide), Firstdraft Gallery (Sydney), FELTspace (Adelaide), and during an artist's residency at Kunst Stoffe (Berlin). For more images and writing please visit: http://mmrgghh-hi.tumblr.com