East Midlands artists to feature in 2019 Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art

Coventry’s second Biennial of Contemporary Art will feature work by Northampton-based Dylan Fox and Nottingham-based Ollie Ma’. And we’re delighted that CVAN EM has been instrumental in helping some of this to happen!

Strip Curtain, 2018, flagging tape ribbons, H3600 x W2255. Credit: Ruby King

Through a practice that is largely dialogical and participatory, Dylan Fox explores the physical, medical, emotional and social aspects of gender transition; specifically the frustration felt with inefficient transgender healthcare pathways. For the second Coventry Biennial, Dylan – who graduated from The University of Northampton in 2016 with a First Class BA (Hons) in Fine Art – will expand upon his recent work Strip Curtain, first made for NN Contemporary. He will produce several new versions of this work to be installed at key thresholds throughout Coventry Biennial, each responding to the contexts of the venues, which vary from medieval to modernist buildings as well as local museums and art galleries. Ryan Hughes, founder and artistic director of Coventry Biennial said of Dylan’s part in the event:

“I first met Dylan at the CVAN EM Another World is Possible event in Northampton and was blown away by the strength and ambition of his solo show at NN Contemporary, it’s really exciting to be working with him on a series of site-specific works which are a direct development of the work he made for that show.”

From the Open World series, 2016
Ollie Ma’, who graduated with a BA Hons in Photography from Nottingham Trent University in 2017, explores feelings of dislocation and disconnection in his work, and has been informed by the theatrical conventions of epic theatre, as well as the form of story-telling pioneered by John Wyndham called logical fantasy.  Ollie will present a large body of photographs from his Open World series, taken both in the real world and in the digital space of computer game Grand Theft Auto, these images problematise the digital/physical divide at a time when Coventry will be a testbed for 5G technology. Hughes commented:
“I’ve presented work by Ollie before in a small digital arts festival called Artists Compute back in 2016, its really exciting for us to be able to present a larger body of his innovative work in Coventry, a city which has a really strong community of photographers and is testing new technologies” 

Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art brings critically engaged, high quality contemporary visual art to the city and surrounding area. Celebrating and promoting contemporary art and artists, the festival is equally rooted in the city of Coventry, its history and its future. This year’s biennial, which will run from 4 October to 24 November 2019, is entitled The Twin and comprises a series of exhibitions, events and activities about relationships. Coventry now has 26 twins. The exhibiting artists and groups will all explore themes, ideas and processes which resonate through this international city including translation, collaboration and togetherness while also exploring some of the difficulties presented by globalisation, political inequality and conflict.

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