VOCE DELLA YAB-YUM

Collective//Pod commission acclaimed artist Mike Chavez-Dawson to curate a responsive, multi-part triptych featuring installations, a new video artwork and a unique live performance across three sites in Coventry. Mike Chavez-Dawson focuses the work on a series of his text-Rorschach’s based on a variety of unknown and well known artists that have experienced mental health issues. The Rorschach is an image made up from ink or paint blots, and became the basis for a controversial system of psychoanalysis. Alongside this, the artist has also co-produced a bespoke limited edition ‘Face Your Demons’ sorbet. Chavez-Dawson’s work imposes a dialogue across the three city sites. Coventry Centre of Contemporary Art (CCCA), Fargo Village hosts an interactive installation in Bob & Roberta-Smith’s shed titled: ‘La Voce Della Yab-Yum’. This sees Chavez-Dawson present two new works; one a set of floor to ceiling drapes enclosing the space, featuring an inverted design made from twenty one text-Rorschach; the other a six foot tall sculptural stand constructed from reclaimed bullet-wood from a closed-down psychiatric clinic, containing a 1940’s renovated brushed steel medical x-ray light box (originally used for looking at head trauma scans), and a duratran print (large format colour-slide). A sonic composition will reverberate through the space. In addition, outside the CCCA, for the launch date only, an eight-hour durational performance ‘Face Your Demons, v1, 2015’ sees Chavez-Dawson produce one hundred and eight ‘text-Rorschach’s’, live. The Pod sees an installation titled: ‘Conquered Demons, v1, 2015’, where a newly produced banner hangs, featuring a remixed inverted pattern design of responded to text-Rorschach’s from a workshop delivered in advance of the launch by the Pod’s studio holders Eve Hyde-Davis, Jennifer Shufflebotham and Lauren Heywood. Underneath the banner, a concrete poem made up from an anonymous list of demons people expressed they faced. An exhibition by emergent Coventry artist Colin Oddy, entitled ‘Can’t we all just get on’ explores the process of construction and destruction. A Limited Edition FACE YOUR DEMONS sorbet; Raspberry, Lemon Balm, Wood Botany is served. A collaboration conceived by Mike Chavez Dawson, made by Claire Kelsey and herbalist Jasper Launder – a Zest Sorbet – anxiety busting and courage building. Linking the three sites Coventry’s large outdoor screen at Millennium Place features a new video and audio work titled ‘Echoes of Face Your Demon’s, v1, 2015’; twenty-one selected text-Rorschach’s presented as an animated composite slide show. The Rorschach’s separate in two to reveal the next one in a seemingly endless loop, the accompanying audio, a recording of the artist’s heart beat and the rush of blood through his veins slowing down during a period of sitting mediation. To celebrate this major project, Chavez-Dawson instigates and co-produces a ‘Face Your Demon’s’ sorbet as a limited edition edible artwork, available at key venues in Coventry and Manchester. Collective//Pod said, “This is the third exhibition we have commissioned for The Coventry Centre of Contemporary Art (CCCA), the Bob and Roberta Smith shed at Fargo, of which we are the proud custodians and curators. Commissioning Mike to extend from here across the city to