366:366 (finally): The long duration of the making of an artwork

Inaugural lecture: Professor Ang Bartram

For the leap year of 2016 I exhaled on an etching plate every day. 366 breaths layered on the same surface, in the same place, and at roughly the same time. The accumulative breaths charted the process of isolating and capturing those layered singular exhalations, and now the act is being reversed through repetitive laborious methods. ‘366:366 (finally)’ is a series of prints made from the etched plate to match the number of breaths which scored its image. A work in process that has been exhibited in its growing volume since 2017 that will reach its conclusion at the end of this exhibition. The work has been unfinished and in a state of process itself, growing as more prints have been added during the four exhibitions in the series, Documents Alternatives.

The focus of this contextualised talk is on the artist's durational practice, how research underpins decision making and intent, and how failure and mishap are often by-products of the process.

Professor Ang Bartram

Angela Bartram is an artist and artistic researcher. Her work, made as objects, sound, video, print, performance event, and published text, concerns thresholds of the human body, gallery or museum, definitions of the human and animal as companion species and strategies for documenting the ephemeral. Recent exhibitions include Manchester International Festival (2019), Karst, Plymouth (2016), Hillyer Art Space, Washington DC (2016), Miami International Performance Festival (2014, 2013), and Grace Exhibition Space, New York (2014, 2012). Publications include the co-edited book ‘Recto-Verso: Redefining the Sketchbook,’ and her special guest edited volume of ‘The Alternative Document’ for Studies in Theatre and Performance.