Kunsthuis SYB

For the project Quietly my Broadcast, artist Ruth Legg has used a residency at Kunsthuis SYB to take a closer look at the Frisian broadcasting corporation Omrop Fryslân. The material collected by Legg has provided inspiration for a third and final video piece, which together with the other works in the series will be shown in SYB on Saturday August 6th.

Quietly my Broadcast forms part of Legg’s long-term research into the reception of individual creative vision in the public domain. This theme plays an important role in both her art practice and her research as a PhD student. Legg’s work is concerned not with the message of an artwork, but instead the manner by which this message is communicated. She focuses on the visual codes and languages, which transform an idea into something, which is a source of information about the artist and their culture.

During her residency at SYB Legg has spent time at the Omrop Fryslân broadcasting station, focusing in particular on the production of the programme Doch it foar dyn doarp (Do it for your village). She has used this opportunity to explore concepts of professional and amateur creativity and to examine the translation of personal vision into the visual language of television.

The work produced for this residency forms the last part of a video trilogy, the two previous works being Dorianne Kransberg (2010) and The Biggest Problem is The Framing (2010). Dorianne Kransberg takes as its starting point the Amsterdam city image archive, and one of the archive’s photographers, Dorianne Kransberg. It attempts to uncover Kransberg’s personal photographic style and in doing so negates the authority of the institution, where endless images grouped together encourage anonymity. This works endeavors to present an alternative historical image, one that is concerned primarily with aesthetic choices, as apposed to ‘historical accuracy’.

As part of her work period at SYB, Legg has organized a programme of events to take place on Saturday afternoons. Invited artists and writers have been asked to reflect on the research theme put forward by Legg and to relate it to their own practice. This programme, entitled A Soapbox and a Microphone is publicly accessible. As part of this programme Legg can be heard in discussion with SYB committee member Rutger Emmelkamp on 6th August.

Ruth Legg (Hampshire, Great Britain, 1980) studied at the Glasgow School of Art and at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. Her work has been shown at exhibitions in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, London, Glasgow, Paris and Belgrade. Since 2009, she has been working on a PhD at Goldsmiths University in London, her focus is the relationship between presentations of history and “artistic responsibility”. Her research is co-financed by Fonds BKVB. Ruth Legg lives and works in London and Amsterdam.

Program ‘A Soapbox and a Microphone’ on Saturday at 17.00:
2 July – presentation in co-operation with Alexis Blake (US), an Amsterdam artist who works with video, installation and performance.
16 July – conversation between Rutger Emmelkamp (NL) and Ruth Legg. Rutger is a visual artist, lecturer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and member of the programming committee of SYB.
23 July – presentation by visual artist Isabel Cordeiro (PT). She will be creating work in Kunsthuis SYB.
30 July – presentation in co-operation with Rebecca Harris (UK), an author and researcher at Goldsmiths University.

Presentation:
saturday August 6^th at 5