An Interview With…

The huge importance of an exhibition setting or space has long been acknowledged by exhibition goers and emphasised by curators who pain-stakingly spend months reinventing a space in order that it best presents, supports and reflects the work on display. Itinerant art gallery Squid & Tabernacle has taken the concept a step further, deliberately avoiding the restrictive rootings of a bricks and mortar gallery location, instead finding specific locations to suit their exhibitions.

The concept of a nomadic gallery makes perfect sense, allowing the artist and curators to have even greater freedom and input into the final finish and feel of the exhibition as a whole.

You will currently find Squid & Tabernacle located in a disused shipping container just round the corner from Dalston junction Station, Hartwell Street to be exact. ‘An unlikely spot for an art gallery’ was my first thought, but apparently not. The thriving art community that exists and continues to grow in Dalston means the gallery is never short of visitors and apparently many of the other containers on the site also serve as functioning offices or community spaces.

So impressed was I by the ingenuity and logic of the Squid & Tabernacle project, I set out to meet the gallery founders Hanna Sorrell and George Major one boiling hot June evening. Despite our meeting location being an uncomfortably over heated metal box, both were kind enough to answer my questions and shed some light on the intriguing concept that is Squid & Tabernacle.

Interview with Anisha Jogani, Co-curator of ‘The Aroma Diner’

On 16^th April 2010, a group of young artists are set to stage a fascinating, experiential event as part of the Raw Canvas Twenty For Harper Road series. Inspired by society’s bizarre and increasingly unbalanced relationship with food today, 24 Harper Road, will become home to a brand new and totally original dining experience:  The Aroma Diner.

The Aroma diner is a multi-disciplinary project combining art, design, science and architecture in order to create an immersive environment of sensory pleasures. The concept involves hosting a four course meal in the project space, to be enjoyed purely through smell and smell alone. In order to discover more about this innovative project, I posed some questions to Anisha Jogani; exhibition co-curator and the brains behind the initial concept.