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Jes Fernie

Independent curator

Essex, Royaume-Uni

12 Posts

11 Followers

6 Following

Curatorial Expertise: Independent Curator, writer, Public Art, Contemporary Art, Exhibitions , Performance, site-specific

Biography

Jes Fernie is an independent curator and writer based in the UK. She works with galleries, architectural practices and public realm organisations on public programmes, commissioning schemes, exhibitions and residency projects across the UK and abroad. Working primarily beyond gallery walls, she is interested in an expansive idea of contemporary artistic practice, which encompasses dialogue, research and engagement. She has worked with a broad range of organisations including Focal Point Gallery, Tate, Peer, RIBA, Matt's Gallery, Arts Council England, Flat Time House, Seventeen Gallery, PEER, Lund Cathedral and the RCA. She is currently an Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins and in recent years has lectured, mentored and carried out studio visits at Goldsmiths, University of Essex, University of Leicester, The RCA, University of East Anglia, The Cass and Delfina Foundation. Artists she has worked with include Alice Channer, Rhys Coren, Harold Offeh, Alison Wilding, Gary Hume, Nathan Coley and Marjolijn Dijkman. Jes is a board member of Matt's Gallery in London, and in 2021 launched the Archive of Destruction.

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Art Project
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Archive of Destruction
 
 
Studio Visit
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Alice Channer
A studio visit to see recent and current work by Alice Channer, London 2020
 
Publication
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Murdered with Straight Lines
This book of drawings by Garth England is part of the Future Perfect programme and was published in April 2016. It is co-edited by Future Perfect curators Jes Fernie and Theresa Bergne. Garth England was a long-term resident of Hengrove and Knowle-West in south Bristol; Murdered with Straight Lines tells the poignant story of a childhood lived through a world war and its aftermath; the development of Britain's Welfare State and social housing provision; vernacular architecture, indoor toilets and fitted kitchens. The drawings were discovered by Jo Plimmer, engagement curator of Future Perfect, when she visited Hengrove Lodge as part of the public engagement programme. Garth died in 2014 but he knew of our plans to publish his drawings and gave us his blessing. The title of the book is a reference to the response that his teachers had to his drawings. The book is designed by Polimekanos and funded by the Hengrove Arts Fund and the Hengrove Neighbourhood Partnership. It's sold out but second hand copies can be bought: here
 
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History Rising
 
 
Art Project
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Museum of Dark Places
Museum of London
 
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Writtle Calling
 
 
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Råängen
 
 
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Shape of Story
'Shape of Story' is a new publication which features a conversation between artist Rhys Coren and curator Jes Fernie that took place over email from August 2019 to February 2020. The pair met in 2017 when Coren was approached by Fernie, an independent curator, for a new public artwork at Hanover Square in London. Commissioned by Great Portland Estates, the nine meter long outdoor installation will launch in October 2020, marking the artist’s first foray into creating large-scale public works. During his most recent solo exhibition, 'Shape of Story', Coren began corresponding with Fernie about his latest body of work. The result is a seven-month dialogue that strolls through the diversity of themes explored in the show from parenthood, urban nature, walking, mental health and self-improvement. Published by Seventeen Gallery, 2020
 
Art Project
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46 Brooklands Gardens
 
 
Publication
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House Taken Over
‘House Taken Over’ is a book about making art, looking at art, and talking about art - all in a domestic setting. The context is London at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Published by Balin House Projects in 2019 with contributions artists, writers and curators, 'House Taken Over' features interviews, essays, recipes and experimental texts. The book is edited by Jes Fernie and includes contributions from writers Holly Corfield Carr and Lorena Muñoz-Alonso, artists Harold Offeh and Martin Cordiano, and theatre director Ada Mukhina. It is beautifully designed by Sarah Boris.
 
Publication
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Contaminated, implicated
Artist Alice Channer invited me to write an experimental text in response to her exhibition at Turf Projects in Croydon, London (25 July - 31 August 2019). I assume a reptilian stance and crawl through the facade of the gallery on my belly, viewing the sculptures from a low vantage point. Picking up on themes in Alice’s work, it’s about environmental catastrophe / plastic / fossils of the past and future / end times.
 
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History Rising
History Rising is a study of museum display systems by artist Marjolijn Dijkman and curator Jes Fernie. Readers are invited to reconsider their view of history by looking at the mechanisms museums put in place to create a sense of order and hierarchy within their collections. By distancing museum objects from their support structures History Rising forms a critique of the assumptions that are made about how things are positioned, who chooses to display them, and how the social, political and aesthetic choices that are made in the process dictate the language of display. The book consists of visual and written essays, an interview between artist and curator, an inventory of works, and documentation of Dijkman's History Rising installations in museums and galleries in the UK. The installations and sculptures propose strange and fantastical juxtapositions, alleviate objects from the weight of history and create links with modernism, the heritage industry and the aesthetics of sci-fi.