“We have a secret hidden group on Facebook where we exchange ideas but its nothing compared to a good chat over the phone.”

Most of the time Kimbal seems to be away performing in various countries – forever simplifying his acts so he can travel lightly with a recording device (I can usually tell when he’s not in the UK – the dialling tone is different – sounds like he’s engaged most of the time or perhaps somewhere unattainable).

I got to thinking how Kimbal’s work fits in to this strange beast that is ArtEvict. The nature of the spaces that are revealed each month bends towards an ephemeral approach – an ad-hoc deliberation in what is made and performed. Today’s telephone conversation came to a conclusion: Kimbal takes away, tidies up his ideas – he packs himself up to hitch hike to another land where he straps himself to a stranger. Then I come along and make a piece of installation art where I want props and sounds and flashing lights – basically making a mess.

At some point we have to reach equilibrium and perhaps this will happen in the performance itself. Certainly my drawings seem to be acting as modes of communication – they seem to strike ideas within the nomadic man’s mind.

So I also got to thinking of how even in Kimbal’s stationary habitation – a warehouse/studio/flat/bed-living working area in north Hackney – is also a place of ever-changing racing activity. I want to install myself in this and build my ideas next to his self-made MDF bedroom. To this idea I thought of a tent made of paper to match his medium density box.

This image is that which is drawn by another the person on shift before me. It looks like a tent or a pyramid. A hidden space within a hidden space is perhaps a make shift studio constructed upon arrival in London through collaborative exercise and conversational/visual exchange. It can also be a drawing tool or a habitable or moveable studio.

Find out more about Richard Taylor here.

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Hidden Spaces – a month of blogs by members about their hidden space – whether they be real, imagined, unbuilt, cut-off from the public, demolished, spiritually significant or politically sublimated. Read more from the series.

ArtEvict. My friend Kimbal Bumstead has asked me to re-stage a performance we did together in 2008 – this time in a wearhouse in East London. In fact these ArtEvict guys, they seem to take on the semblance of organising a rave – the location always follows the notion of perfomance, it remains hidden until a mail out is sent – and there is never a singular location – every month it changes. The rave may be something to do with ‘cultural’ tenancies in wherehouses and other spaces – such tenancies that at times meet disagreement: ArtEvict follows along the same lines – it moves from one space to the next relying on the ephemeral approach that performance art installs in an artists work. (More information of ArtEvict – www.artevict.com/abou-us.php)

There has been multiple projects between Kimbal and myself, notably a curated site-specific exhibition in an old church and bell tower near Leeds Central Station. This was as the clocks changed for Daylight Saving (the exhibition took this name as a timely device for conceptual applicability). We facilitated each other as the works were installed and thus we were inbuilt in to one another’s work as much as the space itself. My hidden space came from the relationship between public display (the exhibiting of a work) and the work-done behind the scenes. I was commuting from Glasgow every month or two in the 7 months prior to the opening – each time I re-visited the site and re-allocated my installation. The ideas grew as I began to realise how the (hidden)space could be used as a studio. With a set of keys and a torch I explored the bell tower and set up shop in the top most compartment just below the time keeping device. I was hidden from view but from there I could look down upon the world (or the city centre of Leeds anyhow). (More information on DAYLIGHTSAVING – rich-taylor.co.uk/archive/daylight-saving)

This Blog will follow the cohesive approach to facilitation and performance in the build up to a collaborative work between  Kimbal Quist Bumstead and myself (Richard Taylor) for the May 2010 installment of ArtEvict.

Read more posts by Richard Taylor here.

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Hidden Spaces – a month of blogs by members about their hidden space – whether they be real, imagined, unbuilt, cut-off from the public, demolished, spiritually significant or politically sublimated. Read more from the series.