The Skinny Showcase: Just Guts
We showcase the work of the Just Guts collective, fresh from their collaboration at this year's Edinburgh College of Art degree show
Just Guts came together in September 2017 at Edinburgh College of Art, made up of members Szabolcs Fricska, Ursula Ilett, Fiona Berry, Harry Whitelock, Niklas Gustafson and Tiki Muir.
The intention of the group's collaboration was to combine their work, taking control of the space in and around a communally-built structure to discuss their work collectively and work against normal degree show formats.
Occupying most of the 72-square metre room, with three large sections and a performance area, the structure allowed Just Guts to adapt their work for its design, and the design to their work. It also allowed the group to create their own context, one that could be removed from the art school and imagined elsewhere.
"Wanting to inhabit a space we could call our own, the environment quickly became what we would consider a domestic space, seeing each object as serving two uses, both that of an expressive art object and something designed to be used. Our individual practices of sculpture, video, performance, painting, printmaking and ceramics, with their own thematic and political nuances were joined together in a space built for and directed by our collaborative aims. Together we looked at ideas of ownership, domesticity and hierarchies of art and design. Our works began to feel like possessions, integrated with each other like that in a family home.
"We found the complexity of the space exciting; coming from different disciplines within the art school each of us could contribute elements others desired but didn’t have the skill or capacity to achieve. By activating the space with performance, workshops and furniture to be used, we hoped to make something alive and functional that both the group and its visitors could feel comfortable in. The exhibition became a hybrid space, both theatrical and practical, speaking directly and imaginatively and lying between individual and collective forms of art and design. The opportunity to work out of isolation enabled us to form a shared space of desire rather than a solitary one, providing us with a community to work within, to develop ideas and exchange skills, while enabling us to work on a project far more ambitious than we could achieve alone."
Contact the Just Guts collective on gutsgutsgutsmail@gmail.com
instagram.com/just.guts