Art is Ours, Mine and Yours!: Assunta and Lou Art Club
23 May - 13 June
Launch Event: Sat 23 May, 3 - 5pm
Bloc Projects is delighted to present Art is Ours, Mine and Yours, the first major solo presentation by Assunta and Lou Art Club. During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Assunta's home studio became a space for both art and childcare at once. Unable to work independently, she began making with her child Lou, then four years old: using the household scanner and printer, their drawings evolved through layering interventions. Under the banner of their art club, Assunta and Lou invite other carer-and-child units to also make art alongside them.
Sheets of translucent, oversized prints made by the artists will create a soft environment and a floor-quilt filled with art materials will invite families to have a go at creating together. Art is Ours, Mine and Yours takes seriously the possibility that intergenerational collaboration produces something that is not child art and not adult art, but something else.
Alongside the exhibition are a series of family-inclusive events that will take place during the May half-term. Join us for:
3 facilitated workshops at the gallery during the May half-term (Tues 26 May; Thu 28 May; Fri 29 May)
Making Space for Children and Art on Wed 27 May: a 1-day symposium organised in partnership with the Art Working Parents Alliance and hosted by Millennium Gallery. Details coming soon!
Lou is ten years old and has been collaborating with her mother Assunta since 2020.
Assunta Ruocco is an Italian and Belgian artist and researcher based in Nottingham, and a Lecturer in Fine Art at the University of Lincoln. Her practice spans drawing, printmaking, photography, and digital technologies, with a sustained focus on collaboration, care, and the conditions of cultural and academic labour. Since 2020 she has developed a long-term collaborative project with her daughter Lou, exploring intergenerational collaboration and the practical realities of working and researching together. This work has been supported by Arts Council England and shown at Eastside Projects, Two queens, Primary Nottingham, Stryx Gallery Birmingham, the Storey Gallery Lancaster. Assunta and Lou also run regular art workshops for children and parents and carers at Nottingham Central Library.
Image credit: Beki Melrose