News 2020

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Illustrious creates immersive 3D binaural soundscape

posted 3/10/2020

Illustrious has been collaborating with artist Dawinder Bhansal to create a soundscape based on frank interviews with a variety of couples who fell in love in the 80's and are still together.

The binaural soundscape will be available on the website https://www.wefoundloveinthe80s.com/ from 8th October.

Dawinder Bhansal...

The 1980s was a memorable decade for so many reasons. It was colourful, eclectic and sometimes strange and bizarre! It certainly produced some of the most spectacular art, music, film and fashion, which continue to inspire younger generations today. Like anything in life, you can’t have the good without the bad. Forty years on and the 1980s has so much resonance and parallels to our contemporary moment, we had a Conservative government, unemployment was high, racism was rife and there was a deadly new virus spreading across the globe.

And yet, in amongst all of this, we still had LOVE. People were still falling in love, although this was easier if you fitted the norms of society. For those who didn’t, falling in love often had to be in secret, especially those in gay or interracial/mixed faith relationships.

After everything we've all been through over the past few months of lockdown, now seems like a perfect time to launch a positive project about love and what unites us.

This project is about celebrating and discovering the unheard stories about falling love in the 1980s. While going on this journey with the couples, we'll also be documenting important British social history.

Illustrious helps create major new project, Breath Is Invisible

Inspired by the Curtis Mayfield track 'To Be Invisible', Illustrious creates collaborative 3D soundscape 'To Be Invisible'

posted 8/7/2020

Tuesday 7 July 2020: A new public art project, Breath is Invisible (7 July – 9 Oct 2020), launches today in Notting Hill with an installation of works by Khadija Saye, the young Gambian-British artist who tragically lost her life in the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, aged just 24. Saye’s is the first of three site-specific exhibitions that comprise the project; Martyn Ware, Zachary Eastwood-Bloom and Joy Gregory will present new commissions created in partnership with the local community.

Working collaboratively with young creatives and arts organisations in the area, Breath is Invisible was born out of an urgency to address issues of social inequality and injustice. Breath is Invisible is the brainchild of patron and businesswoman Eiesha Bharti Pasricha and is curated by Sigrid Kirk. The project was launched by David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, who knew Khadija Saye.,

Khadija Saye, in this space we breathe, part of Breath is Invisible, 2020, Installation view, Image courtesy of the Estate of Khadija Saye, Photo: Jeff Moore

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The project’s community partners include Amplify Studios, The Harrow Club and The Khadija Saye IntoArts Programme which also launched today. Founded by Nicola Green and IntoUniversity, The Khadija Saye IntoArts Programme aims to address the lack of diversity in the UK arts sector by providing opportunities for young people from BAME and disadvantaged communities across the UK.

in this space we breathe (7 July - 7 August) is an installation of nine large-scale prints of Saye’s most celebrated works shown across the façade of 236 Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill. Exploring the migration of traditional Gambian spiritual practices, Saye said of the works, ‘The series was created from a personal need for spiritual grounding after experiencing trauma. The search for what gives meaning to our lives and what we hold onto in times of despair and life changing challenges.’ Portfolio sets of Saye’s silkscreen prints will be available for sale, with the proceeds going to The Khadija Saye IntoArts Programme and the Estate of Khadija Saye.

The second exhibition in the series to be invisible (11 August - 4 September), is an aural and visual 3D installation based on the song To Be Invisible by Curtis Mayfield. Inspired by current events associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, Martyn Ware’s soundscape overlays the sounds of the city with a narration of Mayfield’s emotive lyrics to create a meditative ‘fever dream’. Young musicians from Amplify Studios on Portobello Road created audio contributions which Ware arranged into the final piece. In tandem, artist Zachary Eastwood-Bloom used bio-feedback from the composition to create a generative digital 3D rendering - a visual representation of the effects of racism that will be projected on the windows of the building.

The genesis of Joy Gregory’s work The Invisible Life Force of Plants (8 September - 9 October) is her research into the history of botany between 17th and 19th centuries, revealing how everyday plants we think of as ‘native’ species have their origins elsewhere. Transported across global trade routes as food sources the symbolic, ritualistic and medicinal values of the plants travelled with the cargo. Gregory says ‘My research led me to look at my own personal history through the narrative of plants, their relationship to human ecology and the environment, and the idea of plants as a life force.’ Working with local young people from The Harrow Club, Gregory has collected and dried plants gathered from the community gardens, parks and pavements of West London to create the lumen prints and cyanotypes which will be on display.

Breath is Invisible

Location: 236 Westbourne Grove, London W11 2RH Dates: 7 July – 9 October 2020

For more information visit www.breathisinvisible.com

Image credit: Khadija Saye, in this space we breathe, part of Breath is Invisible, 2020, Installation view, Photo: Jeff Moore

Press Enquiries:

Breath is Invisible

Katy Wickremesinghe and Laura Callendar, KTW London Email: katy@ktwlondon.com
Email: laurac@ktwlondon.com
Mobile: +44 7939 049731

Illustrious contribute to major environmental sound project

posted 8/7/2020

Illustrious will be part of a major collaborative team working with In Place Of War and many other environmentalists and composers to participate in a jointly created exhibition entitled ’Sounds Of The Columbian Rainforest’. Working in conjunction with scientist in Columbia, Illustrious will record and help compose an immersive 3D soundscape. The exhibition will take place in 2021.

Infinite River, Illustrious collaboration with Gustavo Santaolella

posted 8/7/2020

As a collaboration with Vicky Evans for the forthcoming London Design Biennale, in 2021 Illustrious will be creating an immersive soundscape based on a live musical connection between Buenos Aires and London, featuring a joint iterative composition between Martyn Ware and Grammy and Oscar winning Argentinian composer Gustavo Santaolella (Brokeback Mountain), and a giant 3 storey sculpture relating to the notion of water’s role of connectivity worldwide.

Illustrious developing interactive sculptural sonic furniture

posted 8/7/2020

As a collaboration with the interactive artist and product designer Fiddian Warman, Illustrious are co-creating an interactive table constructed from driftwood scavenged from the banks of the Thames. The piece, complete with 3D soundscape based on recordings made at the various Thames-side locations, will be entitles ‘Carbon Blues’ and will be revealed in 2021

We have a number of projects in the pipeline for 2020, please watch this space.