Artist statement
Townley and Bradby make interventions, performance walks and artists' books.
Townley and Bradby's practice explores the routines and rituals of urban public spaces. By carefully combining place, action and props, they feel for the bounds of what is permissible, or for the level at which an intervention ceases to be invisible and rises into the public view.
Their work is nearly always located in the public realm, and has included an improvised game of tennis on urban wasteland (Abide, 2006), a public poll (Plant Popularity Poll, 2006), a performance walk linking the morgue with the crematorium (Dust, 2006), a trail of altered books in a library (Shelf Life, 2003) and a study of pedestrian navigation and cognitive maps amongst Norwich market (Provision, 2004).
By situating their work back in the spaces which informed and provoked it, Townley and Bradby are making it available for chance discovery and comment. They intend their work to function as a framework which people can use to reflect on their surroundings. This reflection might be playful, and the notion of games is important, as it presents an invitation to participate. Some examples of these 'portable ideas' are a guidebook suggesting new ways to move around the city (Sweep and Veer: short cuts and intimate routes around Norwich, 2005), a site-specific drawing where a network of white lines painted on the ground led shoppers on sinuous deviations from their usual routes (Sweep and Veer, 2005), and a tennis umpire's chair and megaphone set up in a car park, with the invitation to comment on the banal view (Abide, 2006).
Current and forthcoming events
- July 2013: Artists As Parents As Artists, Queen of Hungary Project Space, Aylsham (more info)
Solo exhibitions
- 2006 Abide: interventions and performances to re-enchant idle sites of Ipswich, The Town Hall Galleries, Cornhill, Ipswich
Group exhibitions
- 2012 Beaten Black, Blue, Red, Green and Gold, 84 Clifton Street, Splott, Cardiff
- 2011 Business As Usual, Kiln Projects, Norwich
- 2011 Invisible Dust, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, Norwich
- 2009 15 Artists, 15 Days, firstsite, Colchester
- 2009 Communities Under Construction, Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn, Cambridgeshire
- 2008 Kettle's Yard Open 2008, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge
- 2008 NAVIGATOR, The Royal Standard, Liverpool (more info)
- 2007 Members' Show, OUTPOST, Norwich (more info)
- 2007 RSVP, The Foundling Museum, London (more info)
Live/Performance
- 2011 Two-Way Radio Guided Tour, Lincoln Art Programme, Chambers Farm Wood, Lincolnshire
- 2011 The Bowthorpe Experiment, Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Greater Norwich
- 2010 The Conversational Library, Bookmobile Project/yh485, Nottingham
- 2010 Flat Bed Trolley Tour, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, Norwich (more info)
- 2009 Conversations After Dark, Nightjar - a programme of artistic interventions, Cambridge (more info)
- 2009 Cakewalk: a confectionary excursion, The Junction, Cambridge
- 2008 Mobile Sports Foundation, The Royal Standard, Liverpool
- 2008 An Underground Tour of the Above Ground Collection, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich
- 2008 What Now: a silent public discussion about the changing city, Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Norwich
- 2007 Drawing Through Traffic, Rub Me Up The Wrong Way live art micro-festival, Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich (more info)
- 2007 Backing The Chance of a Chance Encounter, Institute of Peripatetic Research, London (more info)
- 2006 Dust, performance walk from hospital morgue to crematorium, Norwich
Intervention
- 2004 Provision, Norwich Provision Market, Norwich
- 2003 Shelf Life, Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library, The Forum, Millennium Plain, Norwich
Artist talks
- 2009 Mechanical Operations in Cambourne, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (more info)
- 2008 Invitation to Play: an informal colloquium, Tate Britain, London
- 2008 Initiative and Institution, London Metropolitan University, London (more info)
Residencies
- 2010 A Word Adventure At Charlie Chaplin Playground, South London Gallery, London
- 2009 Communities Under Construction, Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn, Cambridgeshire (more info)
Public commissions
- 2005 Sweep and Veer - site specific drawing, CAN'05, Norwich bienniale, Hay Hill, Norwich
Publications
- 2009 Mechanical Operations in Cambourne (collaboration with Helen Stratford)
- 2007 Feet Follow These Rules (available from the artists upon request)
- 2006 Abide (exhibition catalogue)
- 2005 Sweep and Veer: short cuts and intimate routes around Norwich
