The Friction Project: a Miniature Museum of Museums, is produced by Flow Contemporary Arts. The project presents a unique interactive artwork created by Tara Downs and Bart Sabel inspired by the collections of three Gloucestershire Museums. This is art you are invited to touch and activate and be enchanted by. The layers underneath are many, you can go down as deep as you like, or simply enjoy the experience – the choice is yours.
Tara and Bart have drawn out a connecting thread between the three museums, that of ingenuity. They have responded to the collections of The Holst Museum (Cheltenham); the Museum in the Park (Stroud) and the Waterways Museum (Gloucester) and present their own Miniature Museum of Museums in the form of an interactive desk. The Miniature Museum of Museums invites visitors to explore their intriguing inventions through touch, sound and movement.
Whether the stories presented are fact or fiction is irrelevant, what matters is that people can experience the delight of how creativity is the impetus to all invention. Music, engineering and humble mechanisms are the outcome of curiosity and imagination. The artwork will tour Gloucestershire throughout 2015, visiting each museum in turn.
28th February – 13th April 2015
Open daily throughout the year, 11am to 4pm
Museum in the Park, in association with SVA SITE Festival
18th April – 31st May 2015
Tuesday to Friday: 10am – 5pm
Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays: 11am – 5pm
Holst Birthplace Museum, in association with Cheltenham Open Studios
12th June – 1st September 2015
Tuesday–Saturday 10am–5pm
Sunday 1.30pm–5pm
Open Bank Holiday Mondays
ASSOCIATED EVENTS
SITE Festival 1st – 30th April 2015
Brunch at SVA Stroud Sunday 19th April 11am-1pm
Cheltenham Open Studios 13th – 21st June 2015
Cheltenham Music Festival 27th June – 11th July 2015
The Friction Project was so-named due to holding a perceived idea that there exists a slight rub between contemporary art and the museum sector; and between fact and fiction. I think I have to put up my hand here and say that was a mis-preconception – because the research done, and dialogues that have been had, have evidenced no friction at all. Indeed I’d say that the level of collaboration and spirit of generosity has been a genuine underpinning for the whole project.
We hope you can come and join us and explore these things with one of our partners in Stroud – SVA, when they host a brunch for the project. The Miniature Museum of Museums will be at Museum in the Park so do go and see it before the brunch, where we will be asking:
“How might contemporary art and museums skill-share to inform innovative thinking that challenges our understanding of knowledge?”
We invite anyone with an interest in contemporary art and/or museums to join this conversation. Friction – a blend of fact and fiction – and there’s the rub. Do the two together disrupt our understanding of authoritative knowledge, or expand it?
Participants are invited to join us to activate their analytical engines – a hearty breakfast with fresh coffee will be served.
Friction – a blend of fact and fiction
Breakfast discussion with Tara Downs, Bart Sabel and Carolyn Black
Sunday 19th April 11am-1pm
SVA, 4 John St, Stroud GL5 2HA
Funded by Arts Council England
Tickets: £5 breakfast included, booking essential
Email: office@sva.org.uk. Tel: 01453 751440
28th February – 13th April 2015
Open daily throughout the year, 11am to 4pm
Museum in the Park, in association with SVA SITE Festival
18th April – 31st May 2015
Tuesday to Friday: 10am – 5pm
Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays: 11am – 5pm
Holst Birthplace Museum, in association with Cheltenham Open Studios
12th June – 1st September 2015
Tuesday–Saturday 10am–5pm
Sunday 1.30pm–5pm
Open Bank Holiday Mondays
ASSOCIATED EVENTS
SITE Festival 1st – 30th April 2015
Brunch at SVA Stroud Sunday 19th April 11am-1pm
Cheltenham Open Studios 13th – 21st June 2015
Cheltenham Music Festival 27th June – 11th July 2015
Carolyn Black 
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