GANGHUT // Profile

GANGHUT- the lowdown

GANGHUT is currently in the thick of it in Lumsden working closely with the local community and primary school on the ever approaching Lumsden gala summer festival. GANGHUT is working in partnership with SSW to rejuvinate the sadly defunct local gala. The all new gala day will take place on the 11th august of this year and promises to include a myriad of traditional and contemporary themes and games. From pie eating contests to disco floats, pig smokers to bottle stalls. The ever changing GANGHUT team is currently living in the community and going to the primary school twicw a week working on bunting, flags, films, music and costumes. GANGHUT member Joe Haughey has joined the carpet bowls team and is working on a commemorative shield that will be given to the winner of the bowls competition he is planning to hold. Sarah Forrest is redifining and old caravan into a mutli purpose sculptural oddity, while Amy Marletta is changing a drab old trailer into a psychdelic disco float where her team of young dancers will follow and boogie in the gala procession. Derek Lodge is recording and collecting film and sounds that will be collated into a audio visual treat for the gala day. GANGHUT also has 2 new animal members, in the form of pigs and have also built and planted a veg. garden to feed the hungry team coming up to help build the event field in the summer. The idea for GANGHUT is that of instigated collaboration; it takes in socialist work ethics, unification and utopian ideologies. The artists remain faceless and nameless, adopting the GHUT moniker. Killing any chance of ego, past or rep disturbing the ethos and flow of the gang. The first proper GANGHUT took place in August 2004 involved 10 artists invited to live 24/7 in the main gallery at Spike Island, Bristol, for a week and become the main gang members. When the artists arrived they were given GANGHUT overalls, a sleeping bag and a camp bed to construct. From 1000 metres of 2x2 and 100 sheets of 8x4 sterling board the gang constructed sleeping quarters, tunnels, a cinema, a stage, a banquet table and a WWII disco watchtower. The gallery was closed from Monday to Friday evening and an event took place from then until Sunday when the installation was deconstructed and left flat-pack. My idea behind GANGHUT lay in memories of childhood dens, the power of being in a gang and the psychology of social structures and friendship. GANGHUT travelled to Oz earlier this year when 3 weary G'hutter's hooked up with Big Joe to adapt a shipping container into a gallery/clubhouse/drawn on oddity. Kangaroo was eaten, bank accounts emptied (nae by the owner), hearts won and broken, brotherhood flourished, pale skin coloured and Henry Moore sculptures pee'd on! Remember if you need back with GANGHUT. You got it!

Artist's CV