Nils Norman, Gavin Wade, Simon Bloor, Tom Bloor

Nils Norman, Gavin Wade, Simon Bloor, Tom Bloor
Kiosk 5: Kite Kiosk, 2008

Kiosk 5: Kite Kiosk, located on The Leas, was a recreation of a kiosk unit based on the 1930s modernist design by Berthold Lubetkin for Dudley Zoo. (Lubetkin also designed the famous modernist penguin pool for London Zoo). 

“Kiosks are a wonderful invention. You can live your life the geometric way framed within a diametric ellipsoid composition designed to make things better”, (Simon and Tom Bloor).

These kiosks are seen as symbols of a utopian future. “As the world develops, new things have to be made out of the fragments; needs will be radically different” (Simon and Tom Bloor). From the kiosk red and black kites were available, each printed with quotes and keywords from the current “culture and regeneration debate.” (Norman). These quotes were further investigated in a booklet put together by the artists, which was also available from the Kiosk. http://www.dismalgarden.com/collaboration/kite-kiosk-simon-tom-bloor-and-gavin-wade

Gavin Wade mit Simon & Tom Bloor is an artist collective (formed in 2005) based in Birmingham, UK. Their extended Kiosk project derived from two ellipsoid concrete buildings located among a series of enclosures created for Dudley Zoo (UK) in 1937 by the Russian architect Berthold Lubetkin and his young architecture group Tecton. With a shared interest in Modernist design and architecture and the proliferation of ideas and images through print Gavin Wade mit Simon & Tom Bloor are sending Lubetkin’s kiosk on new adventures around the globe, giving the kiosks a new lease of life as the multitude of kiosk uses grows.

Gavin Wade is an artist-curator, serial collaborator, Director of Eastside Projects, Birmingham and a Senior Research Fellow at Birmingham City University. His practice combines a number of strategies from developing structures within exhibitions for ‘supporting’ the work of others to a broader enquiry into utopian sites of/for art, resulting in projects merging fiction, public space and whatever else feels urgent at the time. As a pragmatic utopian, his practice combines upcycling, re-enactment and developing exhibiting structures for ‘supporting’ the work of others. https://eastsideprojects.org/artists/gavin-wade/

Simon & Tom Bloor are artists using a variety of social and artistic media, making projects that develop from research into a diverse range of subject matter which includes historic documents, 20th Century architecture & design and contemporary popular culture. http://www.simonandtombloor.com/

Nils Norman has developed his own mix of art and activism, examining histories of utopian thinking and ideas on alternative economic systems that can work within urban living conditions. Norman collaborates with a range of artists and also lectures in Europe and the US. He completed a major design project for the Roskilde Commune in Denmark in 2005 and is now working on a school playground project for the new Golden Lane Campus in East London. http://www.dismalgarden.com