Critical Pulse is a commissioned work by the collective UnderExposed. It is the outcome of a six-month project initiated by the Sussex Festival of Ideas and Photoworks.
In June 2021, a panel of curators, directors and arts consultants came together to discuss what lay ahead for the UK cultural sector. Alongside the panel, five well-known University of Sussex alumni working in the arts were asked to pose a series of questions, to try and gauge what a wider public were thinking about the future of UK culture. The questions served as prompts for image and text-based submissions, which have, in turn, provided the inspiration and source material for Critical Pulse.
Rather than present wall-based objects for quiet contemplation, UnderExposed decided to inhabit the ACCA café space, promoting a very physical interaction with the ideas their project explores. Critical Pulse consists of three related interventions: a contract stacked on plinths; a photographic installation on the windows; and a series of texts printed on translucent paper suspended from the ceiling. Light passes through the photographs on the windows to cast images across the floor and tables. Tracing paper moves in response to changes in air current and passing bodies. Contracts sit between the islands of tables, forcing visitors to navigate around them, or else to pick up a copy to read.
The images and suspended paper texts provide the most literal response to the initial public submissions: a series of visual and textual ideas that animate the space; potential components of any number of conversations activated by the people who move between them. The contract outlines a series of more concrete measures via which the hopes and values that emerged out of the public responses could be linked to material change.
Addressing the four discrete but related themes of community, power, opportunity, and money, the contract identifies a number of routes towards a more inclusive, more democratic, more equitable cultural sector. Visitors are asked to gather together the four pages of the contract from separate plinths, to read and to sign them, and then to pierce them on to a spike. The growing tower of paper provides a visual and material demonstration of people’s commitment to positive change.
Public Programme
Panel Discussion
’Behind Critical Pulse’
UnderExposed co-founders Margot Minnot Thomas, Ricardo Reveron Blanco and Eva Louisa Jonas, in conversation with Ben Burbridge, Lecturer and Co-Director of the Centre for Photography and Visual Culture at the University of Sussex, and author of Photography After Capitalism.
’Behind Critical Pulse’
UnderExposed co-founders Margot Minnot Thomas, Ricardo Reveron Blanco and Eva Louisa Jonas, in conversation with Ben Burbridge, Lecturer and Co-Director of the Centre for Photography and Visual Culture at the University of Sussex, and author of Photography After Capitalism.
Intro begins - 01:12
Discussion begins - 04:05
Discussion begins - 04:05
INSERT AUDIO HERE
Panel Discussion
‘How can we build a fairer, more equitable, more democratic cultural sector?’
A panel of activists, organisers, and cultural workers discuss the challenges currently faced by the UK cultural sector and, particularly, the mechanisms via which more equitable futures could be brought into being: from union representation to collective working, co-operative economies to universal basic income.
Panellists
Chaired by Dr. Joanna Pawlik, Senior Lecturer in Art History, University of Sussex.
Pelumi Odubanjo - multidisciplinary artist, curator, writer, researcher, and co-founder of Contakt Collective
Gareth Spencer – Duty Manager at the Hayward Gallery and President of the PCS Culture Group, part of the Public and Commercial Services Union
Calum-Louis Adams – co-founder of QUILT , a Brighton-based art community, with a particular focus on those that exist outside of traditional institutional settings
Video recording coming soon
‘How can we build a fairer, more equitable, more democratic cultural sector?’
A panel of activists, organisers, and cultural workers discuss the challenges currently faced by the UK cultural sector and, particularly, the mechanisms via which more equitable futures could be brought into being: from union representation to collective working, co-operative economies to universal basic income.
Panellists
Chaired by Dr. Joanna Pawlik, Senior Lecturer in Art History, University of Sussex.
Pelumi Odubanjo - multidisciplinary artist, curator, writer, researcher, and co-founder of Contakt Collective
Gareth Spencer – Duty Manager at the Hayward Gallery and President of the PCS Culture Group, part of the Public and Commercial Services Union
Calum-Louis Adams – co-founder of QUILT , a Brighton-based art community, with a particular focus on those that exist outside of traditional institutional settings
Video recording coming soon
Source/Share/Discuss
During our research, we found the following resources below helpful. We realise it isn’t exhaustive, so we urge you to help us source/share knowledge in an attempt to collaborate to support one another.
Send an email to info@underexposed.space or message us on Instagram @undr_xposed to add to the list.
Tate United PCS (We were particularly interested in the organising that took place during Covid-19 related redundancies, see also Southbank PCS)
The State of It Audio zine that covers the coronavirus crisis and its effect on cultural institutions. Contribution by Gareth Spencer, President of the PCS Culture Group and panelist for ‘How can we build a fairer, more equitable, more democratic cultural sector?’ .
Image: Stemming on a steep face’ from Learning to Rock Climb by Micheal Langleman.
We’d like to thank those who responded to the open call questions through image or text: Eva Roth, Chenille L’Oiseau, Phoebe Wingrove, Socially Engaged Support Peer Group, (re)structure Peer to Peer Group, and those who wish to remain anonymous
