Melanie King // May 2021 News

The Clay House
Bompas & Parr
(Image: The Clay House, Margate)

Walpole Tidal Pool In Infrared is now up in The Clay House, Margate - a new beachfront apartment by Bompas and Parr equipped with experimental foodie stuff! The image is part of my “Wavelengths” series. Photos by Beth Evans.

“The Clay House: Margate’s Gourmet Chalet - a beachfront apartment gloriously positioned between Margate Main Sands and Dreamland. The Clay House is an idyllic retreat for pleasure-seekers, culinary deviants or merely those wanting to revel in a luxurious space. Outstanding features include a cantilevered bath overlooking Margate harbour and Main Sands, seventies-style custom furniture, and the studio’s curated kitchen paraphernalia from grape scissors to curious ice-cream moulds provided for your experimentation. The holiday destination is conceived as a total sensory experience and embodies pleasure in numerous ways. Designed by Bompas & Parr and built by local artisans over a two-year period, the gourmet retreat is opening to the public for the first time.”

Book your trip here.
Find out more on the Bompas & Parr website. 

Curious Minds

I am pleased to be participating in “Curious Minds” with State Studio Berlin on May 18, 2021 at 6pm GMT, 7pm CEST, with astrophysicist Héloïse F. Stevance. 

Find out more and book a free ticket here.

“About this event

What happens when two different minds interconnect and get to think about how they think? The ArtScience Monthly is about putting our curiosity into action and learning from one another via collective exchanges.

On May 18, we’ll shoot for the stars. On this journey, we have the pleasure of being joined by Melanie King and Héloïse Stevance. Melanie King Melanie King is an artist/curator and a PhD Candidate at the Royal College of Art (2015-2022). Her PhD practice-based research “Ancient Light” considers how light travels thousands, if not millions of years, before reaching photosensitive film or a digital sensor. Héloïse Stevance is a Research Fellow at the University of Auckland researching the evolution of massive stars to better understand how they die and produce Supernovae and Kilonovae.

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ABOUT THE ARTSCIENCE MONTHLY

Every third Tuesday of the month, we invite you to join in these open and informal evenings, where we create playful situations for interactions with other participants. We share thoughts, practice open-mindedness and create new bonds, while imagining alternative futures by crossing perspectives beyond disciplinary boundaries. Besides, each session starts with impulse talks by an artist and a scientist; just enough to get inspired and start off an exchange!

These events are organized by STATE Studio in the framework of Curious Minds: a community program that aims to explore new forms of collective thinking, learning and acting at the intersection of art and science.

STATE Studio is a public gallery, showroom and event space in central Berlin. It’s a place for creative synergies between science, art, and innovation to discover and explore the breakthrough developments that shape our future.”

Solo Exhibition at Photo Co Op Folkestone

I am pleased to announce that my solo show “Wavelengths” has been rescheduled for 21 May - 4 June 2021 at Photo Co Op Folkestone. Photo Co Op is an exciting new space, which comprises of a gallery, book shop and colour darkroom.

“Wavelengths” is a series of photographs made on infrared film. To produce the images in this exhibition, I explored the landscapes of Kilpisjärvi (Northern Finland) and Margate (UK). You can see the full series on my website and find out more about the exhibition here. As part of the exhibition, I will be giving small bookable artist talks and there will be a performance of a sound piece inspired by the idea of “Wavelengths” created by Clémentine Blue.

Unstable/Sustainable Exhibition
Format International Photography Festival

Unstable/Sustainable is a re-invented exhibition. It was originally staged at Format Festival by the London Alternative Photography Collective in 2015. This earlier exhibition included a number of photographic works, which gradually changed chemically during the course of the exhibition.

For the 2021 edition of Unstable at Format Festival, all exhibited works will be produced using sustainable photographic processes. Within the LAPC’s Sustainable Darkroom research project, we have been working with a number of ephemeral photography processes which are notoriously difficult to fix.

Photography has a fixation with permanence, which doesn’t exist to the same degree within other art forms. Now that photography is becoming more of an interdisciplinary field, is it always necessary to stabilise our images? In this new era of biodegradable materials, is it not more sensible to create work that can be recycled?

Dates for Online Exhibition: March 12, 2021 to March 23, 2023
Dates for Physical Exhibition: May 17, 2021 to June 13, 2021
Venue: The Small Print Company, Friary Villas 2-3 Friary Street Derby, DE1 1JF

Artists:

Noemi Filetti
Chloe Obermeyer
Hannah Fletcher
Melanie King
Diego Valente
Nettie Edwards
Ryan Moule 
Kim Conway

Caffenol Paper Developer

In advance of my “Ancient Light” solo exhibition at Big Day Film Collective in Philadelphia, USA, I have created a caffenol paper developer video which demonstrates my process. 

Arts & Health Hub Conference on Care

On 22 May, I will be participating in the Arts & Health Hub Conference On Care. In addition to my practice, I will also be discussing the challenging route to my practice faced as a working class female. You can find out more about the conference on the conference eventbrite page.

Support Me

Here are a number of ways to support my work:
- Patreon 
- Ko-Fi 
- Visit my store
- Visit the Land Art Collective shop to purchase artworks.
- Visit the Argentea Gallery website to purchase artworks.
- Visit my Artsy page to purchase artworks.

This months’ Patreon postcard for £10+ patrons is a genuine chemigram from my “Unstable” series. Until November, £90 of my Patreon proceeds per month will provide match-funding for my current Arts Council England grant.