Come and see BBKP’s extraordinary installation at Construction Gallery
BBKP, Big Wheel
Installation artists BBKP bring their wry humour to the main space by setting out to build an impossible structure. Each of the four artists will use their particular craft to repair and re-construct the other’s invention until they manage to create a working ‘Big Wheel’ in a space that doesn’t actually have the height for it.
Birchenough, Brown, Kao & Papasavva installing one of our larger pieces ‘Big Wheel’ in the main space. A giant wheel which is turned by an electric facsimile of a steam engine, involving a workshop dust extraction unit and CD drive valve, to conjure the spirit of the deceased steam expert, Fred Dibnah
The wheel was originally conceived and built as a flat pack kit by Birchenough & Papasavva, but as a commitment to a narrative of skill development, and to an evolution of our art through installation, Brown & Kao will join the others in solving the problem of re-constructing the giant wheel in a space which doesn’t have the height for it.
BBKP are Nathan Birchenough, Nicholas Brown, Craig Kao and Savvas Papasavva.
The four artists have worked together in various capacities since 2006, developing work through residency, educational and shared experiences. They create performances and interactive installations in art- and non-art contexts, bringing their individual skills, interests and idiosyncrasies together; nurturing each other’s habits, sometimes because of and other times despite of, a problem they try to overcome.
Their work becomes multifaceted by the very nature of their collaborations, which involve producing multiple solutions and constantly testing one idea after the other. Birchenough is fascinated by oscillating systems, including steam engines and electrical circuits while Kao’s work deals with the narrative of environment and interventions between sculptural objects and the public space. Brown on the other hand creates mechanisms from wood, motivated by the hope that they will work, if only once. Papasavva assembles the narratives of making in videos, leaving clues as to where things come from and other times revealing more about the ethnography in which things are made.
Previous residencies include projects such as When (i) disappear at the Camden Arts Centre (2007), Transition 08 at the Newlyn Gallery (2008), as well as (three) range chicken at the Freightliners City Farm (2008) and recently Boat Project with Tottenham Hale International Studio (2011).
Since their group residency at the Camden Arts Centre in 2007-2008 in relation to the exhibition ‘Strange event permit them-selves the luxury of Occurring.’ they have begun to also work more independently, developing their curiosities and new works while also keeping the links between their practices alive through sharing thir skills and providing council. Kao went on to be artist in residence at the Sainsbury Centre of Visual Arts collaborating with weather scientists, later working with Brown on bizarre potato sculpture at the Wingfield Barns and Potato Festival. Birchenough freelanced for a company which produces equipment for chemistry laboratories. Birchenough’s job helped him develop a practical understanding of science as well as achieve more ambitious electronic sculptures including animatronic dancing birds for performances at the V&A Museum and Latitude Festival by The Irrepressibles. Papasavva has completed several commissions to build bespoke animating filming equipment for schools in London and Essex.