Mike Stubbs Art

Mike Stubbs is an independent artist, curator and consultant. Living in Doncaster, as Creative Producer for Doncaster Creates and also developing my own new artwork for Bedford Creative Arts and Folkestone Trienalle. For 12 years I was the Director/CEO of FACT, Liverpool, jointly appointed as Professor of Art, Media and Curating by LJMU in 2007. Prior to that Senior Research Resident, DJCA/Dundee Contemporary Arts and Founding Director of Hull time Based Arts.

I am interested in how we shape our everyday worlds and how we seek meaning and significance in the fabric of daily life.

Subjects I explore in my work include machines, work, innovation, class and identity. I spend a long time observing. and enjoy the ambiguity and mystery I find, often capturing surreal scenarios and ambience. Lucidity is fleeting - It is the sensory I am after.

My practice brings together video art, filmmaking, performance and curating, through a process of interdisciplinary research and residency, often in collaboration with other artists and communities.

Where is my practice rooted? I would say in my personal experience, growing up as a Bedford boy. I was born in Welwyn Garden City, one of Britain’s first new towns.

My father, (born in Barrow in Furness, home of Vickers where the first airships were built) arrived in Bedford to work as a technician on Unilever’s electron microscope and then on synthetic flavourings and biological washing powders. Bedford had an early landscape of innovation sites such as Texas Instruments and the Concorde tests at RAF Thurleigh.

Living in Bedford, and in sight of Cardington Sheds, The Imperial Airship Program captured both our imaginations and as a child I was taken to airshows, trips to see barrage balloons and the Goodyear blimp. Bedford provided an opportunity for my family, (working class migrants from Wales and the North West), to join an aspiring middle class.

As a young man I left Bedford to become an artist, filmmaker and curator. Over time my work and my practice has expanded into film and digital arts leadership and advocacy, internationally. And now I am taking a deep breath as there is more I have to say.

On Mike Stubbs:
Encompassing a broad range of arts and media practice, his arts leadership, curating and advocacy has been internationally acknowledged. Stubbs has commissioned and produced over 350 programmes including White Noise, Stanley Kubrick, A life in Pictures and Pixar for ACMI, Melbourne, Nam June Paik retrospective with Tate Liverpool and Kunst Palace, Dusseldorf. For European Culture 2008, producing Pipilotti Rist and Sk-Interfaces at FACT. Mike founded the AND (Abandon Normal Devices) festival as part of the Cultural Olympiad in the North West, 2012. He founded the ROOT Festival in 1992 with a special edition, ReROOTed as part of UK City of Culture, Hull 2017.

Strategic advice on place making, arts policy and programme has been shared with organisations in Cheongju, Hong Kong, Kiev, Miami, New York, Panama City, Sau Paulo, Shanghai, Kobe City, Tainan and Taichung on capital, place-making and artistic program. He was the Curatorial Advisor to Jikji International Festival, Cheoungjiu, South Korea, Digital Revolution, Barbican, London, Crystalize, Billingsgate, UKTI/KOTRA, London and continues as special advisor to Hyphen Hub, New York. He is a mentor to many artists and curators and has been contracted by Banff Art Centre, Canada and Creative Capital, USA.

He led FACT for nearly 12 years, developing it international profile, a public facing strategy of audience engagement and collaboration with diverse communities through many programmes such as, Veterans in Practice, Happy Older People. Other significant projects include FACTlab, the CERN Collide, residency programme. He also co-founded the EMARE, European Media Art Residency Exchange, now in its 24th year and having hosted over 200 artists from all over the world. He has commissioned and curated Teching Hsieh and Krzysztof Wodiczko and Agnes Varda for Liverpool Bienalle.

When FACT celebrated 15 years in its bespoke building, in 2018, Mike commissioned a major program including award winning site specific performance Aurora with Invisible Flock, UKID and Quicksand, India, to be performed in 200 year old, Toxteth Reservoir funded through Ambition for Excellence. Strata – Rock – Dust – Stars, was commissioned and curated for York’s inaugural Medialle exhibition at York Art Gallery UK and then presented with Colombia region artists at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Panama City. Current research subjects include: the Future World of Work, Place making, Digital identities, Immersive Experiences.

Jury Memberships includes, Nam Jun Paik prize 2015. Committee member Collide@FACT/CERN arts residency, Oberhausen film Festival, inaugral Chair, Minsheng A Tube Art Prize, Shanghai 2017 and Aesthetica Art and Film prizes.

He has had his own work transmitted by Channel 4, BBC and STV, has work in major collections and has major exhibitions including a monograph at Baltic Art Centre, Newcastle and video retrospective at Tate Britain. He has won major international awards for his own work including: Next Art, Tainan 2019, Golden Phoenix, Monte Negro Media Art Festival, Serbia, 2006; 1st Prize WRO Biennale, Poland 2005; Barbara London Prize for Cultural Quarter at the 2003 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan; Golden Pencil, Locarno film Festival for Sweatlodge, 1993 & 1st Prize Independent Celtic Film Festival for Contortions, 1984.

IN 2004 he was awarded a Fleck Fellowship from the Banff Art Centre, Canada, made FRSA and made Honorary Professor, Liverpool University and University of Technology, Sydney.

View my website https://www.mikestubbsart.com/