'Ghost Tide' Curated by Monika Bobinska and Sarah Sparkes, Thameside gallery, Woolwich
The Ghost Tide, curated by Monika Bobinska and Sarah Sparkes
Exhibition Dates: 20 October-3 November 2018
Preview: Friday 19 October 2018, 6.30-8.30pm with Gen Doy performance 7.30pm
Curators' Talk: Saturday 20 October 3-4pm
Day of the Dead Closing Party: Saturday 3 November 2-7.30pm
The Ghost Tide - coinciding with the festivals of Hallowe'en, All Souls and the Day of the Dead - takes as its starting point the perspective that ghosts exist as an idea, or as part of a belief system, across cultures, across national borders and throughout recorded history. Most languages contain words to describe the ghost, spirit or immaterial part of a deceased person. Often, these words - like the type of ghost they describe - have traversed borders and been assimilated across cultures.
The exhibition, situated next to the Thames Barrier in South-East London, evokes ghosts as a migratory tide, washed up along the shore of the Thames their historical baggage in tow. It also explores the presence of artists in this part of London, as a migratory tide of creative fotsam and jetsam which ebbs and fows as the city gentrifes and develops. Featured works include sculpture, installation, flm, sound, performance and wall based works. The exhibition will include installations and outdoor interventions, as well as public events.
The Ghost Tide features works by over 30 UK and international artists. Artists featured: Andrea G Artz, Chris Boyd, Davies, Monaghan & Klein, Gen Doy, Sarah Doyle, Graham Dunning, Diane Eagles, Andrew Ekins, Charlie Fox, Katie Goodwin, Kio Griffth, Miyuki Kasahara, Calum F Kerr, Rob La Frenais, David Leapman, Liane Lang, Toby MacLennan, Laura Marker, Joanna McCormick, Josie McCoy, Jane Millar, Output Arts, Miroslav Pomichal, Brothers Quay, Anne Robinson, Edwin Rostron, Matt Rowe, Sarah Sparkes, Charlotte Squire, Sara Trillo, Yun Ting Tsai, Kate Walters, Patrick White, Heidi Wigmore, Neale Willis, Mary Yacoob, Neda Zarfsaz.

Much of my work is concerned with the presence of a spirit or energy within the unseen interior of a ceramic object. I am a ghost story addict since childhood and still occasionally terrified of the dark. Ghosts may be parts of ourselves, cast out in fear, that then inhabit a space or object, and then haunts us back. A thread in my ongoing ceramic pieces explores the notion that a ghost haunts us so, that it is trapped within an object, and revered, or feared and abandoned. I am experimenting with ceramic mirror glazes to conjure a dark reflection, or vision, of another within. Dr Dee's spirit mirror in the British Museum, a scrying mirror made from polished obsidian, and the Pitt Rivers collection of pre-silvered mirrors are objects of reverence. But I want the pieces I am making to be a future imagining of mirrored objects as ghost vessels: washed up, captured and transformed into objects of transference and power, functioning as carriers of trapped selves or ancestors, as a potency to be consulted and placated.
Jane Millar Ghost Tide 2018
