Platform Graduate Award 2018 – Focus on Josephine Rock

Artist Josephine Rock has recently graduated fromUniversity for the Creative Arts, UCA Farnham and has been nominated by Aspex for the Platform Graduate Award 2018. She is one of five artists shortlisted for the award.

“My practice has a tentacular approach to subject and discipline. I utilise video, photography, text, performance, and found objects creating ‘networked sculptures’ to explore ideas around the constructed nature of identity in the digital age. Multifarious artefacts and materials in the work often have dual functions and are embedded with narratives that often seek to contradict each other; reflecting on the tensions between technology and redundancy, authenticity and artifice, transparency and opacity, domestic anxiety and the networked self.

“I am currently living in London where I have recently started an MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. Over the next two years I hope to expand upon ongoing research projects. I am in the process of preparing a body of work focusing on The Dancing Plague of 1518, in which around 400 people, predominantly female, danced uncontrollably, often to their deaths, on the streets of Strasbourg. The reasons behind this incident remain uncertain, but the most probable explanation is social contagion exacerbated by escalating social inequality. My ambition is to re-examine this early example of Mass Psychogenic Illness from the present vantage point of discussion around post-truth politics, fake news and truthiness. Using history and storytelling to highlight the blurred lines between medicine, economics, myth-making, data, documentation and art.

“Platform has provided a stepping stone for my practice after BA, and it has offered me with a great opportunity to connect with other recent graduates. My work you i i i everything else is on display at Aspex in Portsmouth alongside the beautiful work of the other Platform artists until 31 December. I am grateful to curator Catherine Sadler for her support, the team at Aspex and CVAN south for facilitating this opportunity.”

Image: you i i i everything else (detail), UCA Farnham degree show installation, Josephine Rock, 2018. Courtesy the Artist.