Download List of Exhibitions, Performances, Workshops and Residencies here
My sculptures, performances, workshops, drawings and films explore notions of presence, momentum and becoming. My process, which involves collective inquiry and feedback methods of composing and improvising, develops spaces of multiplicity and communality. The sculptures become both actors and mediators of touch and movement, exploring a deep materiality of sound that responds to the people and location they are created for – whether imaginary, site-specific or a combination of both.
Exhibitions and performance commissions include: Tate Britain Sensory Commission (from early 2024); Audiograft Festival of Sonic Art (2023); Towner Gallery Commission (Foundation Foundation Emerging Artist Award) (2022); Tate St Ives Commission Exhibition & Performance (2022) and Bauhaus Foundation Dessau, Residency (2021) & Exhibition at Haus Gropius, (2021/22) in parallel to works by Charlotte Posenenske/Alexis Lowry (Dia Art Foundation).
Talks and workshops include: Harvard Graduate School, Arts & Learning, Guest Artist, Sound Art (2023); UWE Bristol, BA (Hons) Fine Art / Art & Writing (2023); UWE Bristol, MA/MFA Curating, Working the Workshop at Bricks (2023); UCA Farnham Fine Art BA (2022); Royal College of Art, MA Curating Contemporary Art (2021); and Open School East (2020).
“Artist Rita Evans has been working at Haus Muche since September, experimenting with materials and forms and exploring what sound they produce when played and moved by a group or audience from the public. She will be in contact with the people of Dessau to discover new ways of playing her sculptures. The work Rita Evans developed for Haus Gropius, creates a connection between the body of an individual and the space of other bodies, a collective of people that includes the sculpture and its materials. A film shows documentation of previous workshops in which the instrument was played by individuals. In combination with the drawings, plans and spatial scores created in this context, visitors can experience the exhibition space as a sensual infrastructure.” Dr Florian Strob, Director Bauhaus Foundation Residency.
“Invention is an integral part of the creative process for me. Invention is improvisation. A gap (or in my case a question) appears, which I want to find a way to bridge, through trying things out and tinkering. At first it can be awkward, but by looking at something from all angles, I make it work, creating a new thing in the process. I think my sculptures are bridges from one question to the next. To keep the questions flowing, I always keep an openness in the sculptures so they never quite settle.” Rita Evans 2022. Quote selected by Dr Louisa Penfold, Harvard University, MA Arts and Learning, to introduce my practice in sculpture and sound. It appears in Salome Salmacis Interview (2022).
“Rita is innovative and dynamic. Amongst artists we work with on the Learning programme Rita brings a new field for us to work in: making and thinking about sound. She has a unique and inspiring approach to weaving collaborative practice into her personal studio practice. Rita’s practice is innovative, informing and inspiring to the sector -both in terms of galleries/exhibitions as well as engagement/learning. These collaborative frameworks are very much the way we see art making developing in the future. It’s great to have worked with someone who is developing work ahead of the field.” Esther Collins, Head of Learning, Towner Gallery, 2021.
“Do you consider the objects/instruments as temporary in the mediations of collaboration and togetherness? Or are they able to transcend into further sonic embodied experiences beyond the immediate interactions?” A question posed to me during a workshop I devised for the Royal College of Art MA Contemporary Curating course, 2021.
“What first struck me about Rita’s work was its fearlessness about using wide-ranging technologies, combining the sophisticated with improvisatory and spontaneous practice. Her drawings showed a real similarity to the freedom, quirkiness, humour and enquiry intrinsic to Stephen Cripps’ sketches.” Anne Bean, Artist, Stephen Cripps’ Studio Award panel, 2015
“Rita stood out as an artist who was very motivated and spoke and illustrated a number of projects that were often ‘off the beaten track’. She already seemed to be wholeheartedly committed, with a number of engaging ideas, for projects that were well-orchestrated in her mind for Thurrock, the local environment and those who live and work there.” Ron Haselden, Artist, Stephen Cripps’ Studio Award panel, 2015
