Last week artists and first-time curators Milly Aburrow, Daisy-Drew Smith and Lilly Foster-Eardley brought contemporary surrealism to Bath at 44AD artspace and online at Phantasmal Gallery. I met Milly and Lilly on Zoom to discuss their curatorial process, their passion for surrealism and the importance of playfulness in art spaces.
It’s the week after the exhibition and when I ask them how they are they say “tired” with relieved smiles. “I think we weren’t expecting anything going into the exhibition. We just wanted to connect with people. So I think all of us were happy with how well it went. It really created a nice little community and we’re definitely going to keep in touch with everyone,” says Milly.
Their exhibition is called ‘Potluck’, a name which I can’t get enough of. I ask them about how they came up with the name and their thinking behind it.
Milly says, “The name was actually one of the last bits we figured out. We did a callout for surreal arts. The theme was massively open to interpretation, so nothing could obscure what people could submit.
The name ‘Potluck’ came about while we were looking through submissions, seeing the eclectic mix of all the different types of art and all the people submitting. It was really about bringing together a community and it links with how, in a potluck, you bring your dishes and then everyone comes together around this.”
The three curators all met at university. Daisy and Milly studied Fine Art together, and Lilly transferred over to the Fine Art course after starting her degree studying Film & TV. They are united by a shared passion for surrealism, which is present in the exhibition’s theme but also in their own practises as artists. “We really enjoy bending reality a little bit, messing with the uncanny and the unconscious, the human experience. And being very playful with it,” says Lilly. “Surrealism really aligns with all of that and we wanted to see how surrealism has changed and what modern surrealism could do. There were quite a few young, emerging artists submitting their interpretations of surrealism and we found that really interesting.”
“Surrealism is fun, unserious, playful,” adds Milly, qualities that the art world isn’t always good at creating space for, especially in the competitive world of recent graduates and oversubscribed open calls.
The exhibition featured work from over 50 artists, across a whole range of mediums from painting to sculpture to installation. They found the featured artists via an open call which they shared on Instagram and Curator Space, and got over 150 submissions. “It was absolutely bonkers,” says Milly. “This is the first time we’ve curated anything.”
I ask them about their curatorial process and how they selected the final line-up of artists for the show.
“We went through a process of deciding what we liked, our personal tastes. We decided our non-negotiables. We all picked one where we felt: ‘I must have this.’” For Lilly this was Rachel Mortlock’s hamster cage of woodlice, which incidentally was the first thing placed in the gallery. It took a meticulous two hours of building led by the artist, and the rest of the exhibition was then built around that.
“When we were picking artwork, we didn’t think about it coming together but I think there was a subconscious vibe between our art styles and what we liked,” says Milly.
“We were quite influenced by Rachel McClean’s surreal show. It made us think about how you can put all the works in one space. We were quite surprised how well it all fit together,” continues Lilly.
I ask them to expand on the idea of contemporary surrealism, and what they’ve discovered about the future of surrealism through the exhibition and how the exhibiting artists responded to the theme..
Milly starts, “We had a lot of people come into the gallery and say that this wasn’t traditional surrealism. And it totally wasn’t. It was out there and wild and mad. It’s really interesting to try and discover, and pinpoint, what new and contemporary surrealism is. We always relate artwork back to traditional surrealism and if it isn’t Magritte, it’s hard to connect your own practice to surrealism. I never even made that connection through my three years at uni even though I was dabbling in surrealism throughout. The exhibition has helped our own practices, and helped us to think about how contemporary art is moving forwards and where it’s going.”
“I feel like a lot of the artists in the exhibition were influenced by the traditional surrealists, but they interpreted them in their own way, in a new way. One of our artists Poppy Maby was strongly influenced by traditional surrealists Edward Hopper and Rene Magritte but she brought it into the 21st century by bringing toys she grew up with, like Sylvanian families, into the work,” says Lilly.
“It’s really interesting to look at it generationally, and also see how technology has transformed art in a massive way,” adds Milly.
Curating an exhibition is a big, and potentially daunting, undertaking. I ask them what advice they’d share with other emerging and aspiring curators thinking about putting on their first exhibition.
“Just do it,” says Milly. “I booked out the gallery before even having an idea.”
Lilly continues, “We had a lot of people come to the show who are locals from Bath who said this was really amazing because they don’t tend to have this sort of art and this opportunity for young artists in Bath as much as say London or other big cities. In a way I think we’ve changed what art gets shown in Bath a little bit, which is really nice. When we approached the curation we said to ourselves, ‘We want to do this. We need to do this. We need to bring a bit of change to what is normally seen in Bath.’”
Milly adds, “There are always barriers; what you can and can’t do, but doing this made us think: we can actually do this, we can put on a show.”
The exhibition explores the uncanny and the unconscious, transporting viewers into a dreamlike space. I ask Milly and Lilly what it felt like to watch people who visited the gallery be transported into this space as they spent time in the gallery.
“You could see the viewer's journey as they came in and out the gallery,” says Milly. “No one artwork overpowered another, even though there were a lot of incredible, bonkers artworks. But they all evened each other out. We put Lettuce Lickers by Lydia Durnall in the second room as soon as you walked in which drew a lot of people into that room - it’s absolutely enormous. Comically, we decided to put the two smallest works either side. It worked so well. We put this amazing work called Pet Shoes by Jeanne Gourlaouen right by the exit of the gallery and it was really great to watch people walk out and notice it. It got such a good reception.”
Lilly adds, “We also had a submission by Sav Goldman. They said, ‘I just want to do a silly installation. Put toilet roll on the ceiling, things like that.’ We went up into the bathroom and everything was up on the ceilings, on the walls. It was so comically done and watching people go to the bathroom and come back to check if they could actually use the bathroom was great. It was all usable but you just had to pull the toilet roll from the ceiling. It was very playful and funny.”
All three of the curators are queer, and quite a few of the exhibiting artists are also part of the LGBTQ+ community. I ask Milly and Lilly how their queerness intersects with the curation of this exhibition, and whether it has impacted or influenced it in any way.
“Definitely,” says Milly, immediately. “You make art in relation to your own identity, and this also translates into curation. We were very aware of the different groups of people coming in. We wanted to create opportunities and make it equal.
As a marginalised creative there are certain barriers within the art world. I was part of the recent Hysterical exhibition and it was absolutely amazing. I’m so grateful to the curators Bee and Eliza because it made me aware of how these spaces and exhibitions really do aid a safe place to equalise voices, and how important this is.”
“Our show was also a bit campy,” says Lilly, “especially with our AI eyes and mouth, and the squiggles Milly designed across the gallery room. Normally the artists’ info is printed on white card and we decided to put it on sticky vinyl instead, to make it pretty and make it fun. And because we can, because we wanted to.”
“At the end of the week we did an artists talk,” adds Milly. “That’s where it really clicked that this was an inclusive space where artists felt comfortable enough and confident enough to take the time to speak about their work in a way that was really nice and personal, and how well it worked to bring together a group of people.”
Thank you so much to Milly and Lilly for taking the time to talk to t’ART about what sounds and looks like a brilliant, strange and memorable exhibition. We can’t wait to see what they do next; as artists and as curators.
Meet the artists featured in Potluck via Phantasmal Gallery here.
Photos by Daisy Drew-Smith and Ashley Cerrino
