Ciara Phillips. Warm Friends, Cold Cash

Ciara Phillips will use the infrastructure of the institution and the exhibition space to develop a temporary screen printing studio creating a space to bring together artists, designers and community groups to ‘make together’ as a means of negotiating ideas. Rather than the exhibition space as a site of presentation, Phillips uses the space and time of the exhibition period as the production phase, transforming the gallery into a workshop and the print bed into a negotiating table for debating with others.

Ciara Phillips’ practice revolves around ideas of collectivity, exploring possibilities of collective production. The act of ‘making together’ generates a productive framework for discussing different political ideas and personal positions and Phillips’ printmaking practice becomes a skill in which she is able to exchange with others.

The print workshop’s historical links to political organising, being a place where ideas could quickly and cheaply become distributed through printed material ties Phillips’ exploration at Konsthall C to our ongoing research around‘The Womens day off’. A strike in 1975 that took place in Iceland and one of the most inspiring scenes of women’s organising in Northern Europe which sought to place the struggle of women within the household upon a national agenda.

During her time at Konsthall C, Ciara Phillps will work with members of domestic workers from Kommunal, Hemtjänstupproret as well as student groups from Mejan and Konstfack along with collaborations with Gunilla Lundahl and Joanna Lombard focusing explorations in the gallery around female collectivity and notions of work today.

Ciara Phillips was born in Ottawa, Canada and went to school in Stockholm, Sweden before she completed a Masters degree at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) in 2004. She has been nominated for the UK Turner Prize 2014 and recent solo shows include Workshop, The Showroom Gallery, London and Funktion / Dysfunktion, Neues Museum Nürnberg. Phillips is the founder of the artist collective Poster Club. This will be Phillips first presentation of work in Sweden. Warm Friends, Cold Cash is a collaboration with: Kommunal, Konstfrämjandet, IASPIS, Kungliga Konsthögskolan and Film i samtidskonsten (FIS). The Public Programme is a collaboration with ABF Stockholm. Supported by: Creative Scotland, Kulturrådet International Grant.