56 Group Wales is an exhibiting group of contemporary professional artists working across a wide range of media and concerns.  As with any group, difference is overcome through dialogue, both spoken and visual.  Curation is key in the group’s creative process, and collaboration with curators importantly reveals previously unrealised connections.

We are currently touring At Cross Purposes, a creative curatorial project and series of exhibitions.

The play on words of the project title reflects its mix of creative practice, conversation and curation. The purpose of the project is two-fold: firstly, to extend members’ creative practice through partnerships with artists from across geographical, generational, thematic and processual borders and, secondly, to re-identify the 56 group both to itself and to others.

We live in a time when borders and identities are being called into question. The ways in which many artists approach this situation is by undertaking creative and dialogical practice with others. This project will see each member engaging with a partnered artist and the project’s curator in a three-way conversation. These will, in turn, lead on to a touring group exhibition and a publication.

The invited curator, Dr Frances Woodley has previously instigated, researched and managed creative curatorial projects. Central to these have been conversation and publication, methods that she has approached as complementary creative practices to that of making and curation.