Where have we been since Five Points? Well both Emma and I, for it is the two of us who run Cultivate, have been taking a break from all the cultivation to focus on our own work. We are first and foremost artists first and curators second and Cultivate has sucked up a lot of our time over the last eleven years (Cultivate is eleven this week). We’re back now though, we’re working on quite a few Cultivate events that we’ll make public as things unfold.

Today we’re working on, well we’re working on installation pieces for The Sky Is Moving Sideways but that really has nothing to do with Cultivate (it opens next Tuesday, do read about it here – The Sky is Moving Sideways, a sculpture trail, a gathering of ephemeral sculptures, installation set in the grounds of the rather rewarding Stephens House, Finchley, North London… )

We’re about to embark on an Autumn/Winter programme of Cultivate on-line shows. The On-line shows started back in 2017, long before anyone had any notions of Covid, they were working very well already, they really did take off during lockdown though, and all the on-line exhibitions from back there as well as the four shows that opened during the first four months of 2022 have continued to be viewed by healthy numbers of people (from all over the world) throughout this year. We want to do more, more on-line shows, and so we’re pleased to announce we’re working on three new on-line shows at the moment, two of which we shall bring to your attention now.

Those of you with long memories will remember the Three x Three exhibitions we put on when Cultivate was based on Vyner Street,

Back in the early days of Cultivate, back ten or so years ago, we ran a series of shows called “Three x Three” where we gave one of the three gallery walls to an artist, three artists sharing a wall each in the gallery. I think we did four Three x Three shows, we had some exciting artists on the walls, artists like Ben Fenton, My Dog Sighs, Charlie McFarley, Paula MacArthur, Tom Banks, Merlin Ramos. The fourth show was back in May 2012. Ten years on, we thought we’d bring the idea back as part of our Autumn series of Cultivate on-line shows.

The idea is simple, three artists who might not obviously fit together but then again three who just might be a rather obvious fit. an exercise in cross pollination. Just three artists that we (we being Cultivate founders Emma Harvey and Sean Worrall) are rather excited about at the moment. Three artists who might have taken part in recent Cultivate group shows or indeed who may never have taken part in anything Cultivate shaped. Three artists sharing a carefully cultivated on line show with c curated selection of work from each of them.

Once again the Autumn season of exhibitions will be hosted on the Organ website. Organ is something that started life back in Sean’s art student days of the last century, over the years Organ has been a hand made zine, a glossy magazine, a rather respected alternative record label, a TV show and quite a lot more, these days Organ is mostly a very busy website visited by thousands of people from all over the world every week.

The first of the new Three x Three shows, “Three x Three Part 5” will open at 7pm UK time on Tuesday 20th September and will feature a healthy selection of carefully curated work from three artists who have been regulars in terms of recent on-line shows. Expect more about the first in what will now be an ongoing series of Three x Three shows in a bit. The first of the new Three x Three exhibitions, Part Five (for there has been four already) will feature Melike, Mark Burrell and Sofia Martins Gray.

We shall also be embarking on a new series of group exhibitions, that will run along the same lines as previous on-line exhibitions – the format was working for us, why change it?  It occurred to us that what we were doing was a little like creating a mix tape, that we were gathering together a whole load of artists from all over the land and indeed the globe and presenting a whole bag of art that was exciting us in the hope that it would excite you as well, and that rather like the bands and music you might hear on a mix tape someone had made for you, that you’d go and check out a bit more about those artists. And so after a break for the Summer and following on from the most recent on-line show, Burst, we’re ready to embark on a number of Mix Tape exhibitions, the first of which we’re pulling together right now. Mixtape No.1 will open on Tuesday October 4th. There is an Open Call element to Mixtape No.1.

I did say we were working on three new on-line exhibitions, we’ll announce details on the third show in a moment, as well as news of some other things we’re doing right now in terms of Cultivate.