Collaborative Disruptions

Studio 1.1

7 September - 1 October

Artist, educator and photographer, Nigel Grimmer collaborates with a variety of artists and makers, exploring the potential of craft to disrupt representations of the queer body.

Nigel Grimmer’s current photographic project ‘Analogue Disruptions’ is an investigation of queer self-representation within social media, specifically dating apps and Instagram. He works with volunteers from these on-line platforms creating new portraits. There is no editing in the images; the model sees the finished images during the shoot to enable their input into the creative process.

Physically the works explore a variety of photographic formal visual concerns, particularly the disruption of boundaries between analogue and digital media; digital images are disrupted through a variety of physical, analogue processes, from collage to crochet. Often obscuring the model’s face, Grimmer sets out to critique photographic history and traditional practices.

For Collaborative Disruptions at studio1.1, Nigel Grimmer has created several additions to his Analogue Disruptions project. The new work playfully explores ideas of collaboration as Grimmer incorporates artefacts from other artists’ practice into his work. He also extends the crafting element of his project, exploring the disruptive potential of traditional craft techniques with a variety of skilled makers. Grimmer hopes to establish a creative network of makers for future iterations of the project, to further question representations of the queer body. Further additions to the project will be added during the exhibition.