About the project

Locus - an art project with refugees, asylum seekers and members of the local community from Portsmouth. Artists Ania Bas & Les Monaghan were in residence at Portsmouth Friendship Centre for a year working with the participants to explore their personal LOCUS.

The residency took place between October 2009 and September 2010.

Some of the works developed during the residency continue their post-project life. This blog is being updated with any news on where the work can be seen, played, encountered. If you are interested in learning more contact Ania on aniabas{at}gmail{dot}com

Going out! (prep)
















We spent all winter Friday afternoons (and quite a few of cold spring ones too!) inside the Friendship House. Nearly all this time has been spent on making work that will enter gallery spaces and galleries are not necessarily easy to access for everybody. White gallery spaces can be intimidating - some people commented that they are not sure if they can simply enter them as they are. Maybe tie is required? Maybe you need to know something about what you are about to see inside to be able to enter. Crossing the threshold of the unfamiliar space even if it has large sign 'free' on it is not always easy.

People we are working with live their life in the city - move around it on foot or by bus. It makes sense to me to create with them work that can be put back in the environment their access, they are part of - and look for ways to leave their mark on it.

Seeing a couple of elderly ladies watching the film on BBC Big Screen made an incredible impression on me - they were watching intensely a series of faces talking to them. I hope they realised that the faces belong to the people who cross the same square, who shop in the same shops and stand in the same queues.

We started mapping people's journeys around the city, we started searching for spaces where the routes of two or more of us cross, we carefully watch spaces we like visiting but also must visit. Not sure where this is going to take us just yet, but I think we are searching for shared locus.

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