DACS Meets Wood and Harrison with Ellen Mara De Wachter

DACS announced our first DACS Meets event, We don’t like each other, bringing together deadpan artist duo John Wood and Paul Harrison in conversation with Ellen Mara De Wachter.

We don’t like each other

DACS Meets Wood and Harrison with Ellen Mara De Wachter

Thursday 3 June 2021, 5-6 pm

Online talk followed by Q&A

At a time when creative processes are changing because of the pandemic, many are finding collaborative working and joining of creative forces is more important than ever.

This has been at the heart of Wood and Harrison’ practice for over 30 years. Their work touches on themes of tragedy, comedy and irony, experimenting with the physical limitations, scale and movement of the human body in relation to the surrounding environment - universal notions that many of us can relate to right now.

Ellen is author of Co-Art: Artists on Creative Collaboration (Phaidon) which explores the phenomenon of collaboration in the visual arts and its potential in society at large.

Join us to hear Wood and Harrison, live from their studio, discuss how their relationship has evolved since the 90s and how they have navigated this past year.

John Wood and Paul Harrison make things that move and things that don’t, things that are flat and things that are not, things that are mildly amusing and things that are definitely not. They make works that form a kind of reference manual for how to do, make, build or draw things that you probably never want to do, make, build or draw. They do it for you. Even though you don’t need them to.

This attempt to compile an encyclopaedia of the largely useless, started in 1993 after they met at art college. They live and work in Bristol and Liverpool.

John Wood (b.1969, Hong Kong) and Paul Harrison (b.1966, Wolverhampton)

Ellen Mara De Wachter is a writer based in London. Her writing has featured in a range of publications, including Frieze, Art Quarterly, Art Monthly, The World of Interiors and The White Review. Her video essays have featured on frieze.com, and her programme about research into artistic collaboration was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

De Wachter’s book Co-Art: Artists on Creative Collaboration (Phaidon) explores the phenomenon of collaboration in the visual arts and its potential in society at large. It includes a historical survey of artistic co-production and co-authorship as well as chapters on 25 international contemporary co-art groups.

About DACS Meets

DACS Meets was a series of conversations between artists and cultural practitioners and the series is part of DACS’ public programme which responded to the current global context and how artists continue to play a unifying role in our social fabric.