Tereza Kotyk - International Curator

Last week South Square was visited by Tereza Kotyk, former curator at Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, and at the Cornerhouse, Manchester. Exhibitions she helped curate include "The Intertwining Line" at the Cornerhouse, and "Arbeit*" (Work*) in Innsbruck.

She was visiting the gallery for the first time, to see the space after having suggested South Square as a possible venue for Conrad Atkinson's part of the upcoming international exhibition "Personal Tempest".

 “If this drama has no single protagonist, it has a pronounced motif—one that recurs constantly throughout the Brontë lives and works. This motif is the element of storm: time and again the sisters described some cataclysmic event of nature as a sympathetic manifestation of some inner, personal tempest. The theme first occurs in the shipwreck reference by their mother, Maria Branwell, in one of her letters; its pagan presence was felt by their clergyman father when he wrote of his wife’s death,’…another storm arose,  more terrible than the former—one that shook every part of the mortal frame and often threatened it with dissolution...”

Muriel Spark, ‘The Bronte Letters’, Peter Nevill Ltd: London, 1954, p.13

This exhibition explores how our inner state of mind can be affected by a certain experience of nature, one that uniquely evolves into a ‘personal tempest’. Mirrored in imaginary accounts and personal stories this romantic motif is explored in paintings, drawings, video installations, and photographs from Victorian time to the present. 

Tereza has been working closely with the curatorial team at South Square for this exhibition and offering suggestions and advice with respect to the planning and implementation of the exhibition. Watch this space....

Deborah Britton | Curatorial Intern

South Square is currently taking part in a Curatorial Internship scheme and our current intern, Deborah Britton, has also been helping out at Cartwright Hall in Lister Park, Bradford. While there she has been involved in the planning and setting up of their recent exhibition "Into the Light" by artist Pip Dickens, a collection of works whose common theme is the dramatic relationship we have between light and darkness.

At South Square, Deborah is involved in the curation of the gallery's main exhibitions including planning and implementing of the shows,  for example, much of the design behind the Salon Show was Deborah's concept.

Pip Dickens, Miss Havisham II,  2006-2009

If you would like to know more about Pip Dickens or her work you can visit her site here, and you can read more on her exhibit on www.pip-dickens.com/2009inprogress.htm.