'I've Got Composer'

Exhibition

January 2019

Exhibited at Nottingham Writers' Studio

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'I've got composer' was the culmination of eight months of work with the children at Grosvenor House Day Nursery in Nottingham. The two-day exhibition held at Nottingham Writers' Studio displayed work created by children from ten months old to four years old during an artist-led project in music and sound. The exhibition raised questions about authorship, conscious and unconscious creation, and intention vs outcome. It explored our relationship with sound and how that develops from the very beginning of our lives. Why does the children’s work warrant an exhibition? What does it mean to exhibit artwork that is not created by an artist? What is an artist? Is the artist only valid once they have self-described as such? Is it their first paycheck that is the signifier? Are we artists once we are told we are? When do we become an artist? Do we feel differently looking at artwork by a child when it is placed in the context of a gallery? “Place making, world picturing, and connectivity are the most common concerns of artists these days because they are the substance of contemporary being” (Terry Smith, The State of Art History). Is that not what a child does when they are creating artwork? Differently, yes, but there are similarities. Artists have been trying to regain a childish sense of freedom in their artwork for decades. Is it a case of child trying to be artist and artist trying to be child?