Public Projects – TINTYPE

Experimental initiatives became part of Tintype’s mainstream curatorial program.

Tintype supported three annual projects that took contemporary art outside the white-wall gallery: Essex Road, the Summer Window, and the Project Space.

Essex Road

Tintype’s annual Essex Road moving image program, supported by Arts Council England, became an established part of the gallery’s schedule.

Eight artists were commissioned each year to make short films in response to Essex Road, the mile-long road where Tintype was situated. The films were back-projected into the gallery window mid-December to mid-January and viewed from the street.

The curation of the Essex Road project aimed to create and sustain an adventurous, inventive ensemble program; a familiar place presented and represented in unexpected ways.

Exhibiting a moving-image program on a busy street, engaged many more people than would ever walk into the gallery and increased opportunities for a broad demographic of the public to engage with contemporary art.

The Essex Road project also enabled artists to work with two local schools.

Summer Window

A second public facing project was our annual Summer Window installation. In August, when the gallery was closed, an artist was invited to use the gallery’s large glass window to install a work.

TINTYPE Project Space

The Tintype project space ran for eight years. An artist was given the opportunity to use the gallery space to make work for a specific project. This culminated in a show or a way of involving a public audience.

This resulted in ambitious projects such as Holly Slingsby’s ongoing performance, much of which took place in the gallery’s window; Nicole Vinokur’s cultivation of a meadow inside the gallery augmented by a series of public walks to historical graveyards; and Alice May Williams’ And Now…Grants for Irish Lesbians, a look back into the lesser known queer histories of Essex Road and Islington.