Lizzy Rose (1988-2022) retrospective exhibition

Organised by Crate Studio & Project Space

We are raising money for an exhibition, taking place over five locations and online, celebrating the life and work of Margate-based artist and disability activist Lizzy Rose, who died in January 2022.

Story

UPDATE - more good news! We have reached our target!

We want to thank each and every one of you for your support so far; for helping make the social media campaign so successful; by posting and sharing; and of course, for all the donations. Weve been overwhelmed by your generosity and support. It's a huge testimony to Lizzy; she was loved and respected by so many people.

There is still time to donate until the campaign closes at midnight on the 12th December. The additional funding will be used to fully document the exhibition and work towards a lasting legacy and archive of her work. Every penny we raise in the last few days will help us do more. We feel sure that she would be thrilled.

UPDATE - great news!

A message from Matthew, Katie and Chris (21/11/2022)

Thanks to the astounding generosity of 128 backers £4850 has already been pledged towards the Lizzy Rose (1988-2022) exhibition crowdfunder by the time of writing. We honestly did not expect to make so much progress so quickly. Thank you!

Arts Council England has responded to our application for funding with an offer. Thank you ACE! This means that we will be able to make the exhibition happen. However, we have not received all the backing we hoped for from the trusts and foundations we have applied to. We are going to continue fundraising with a new target so we can work towards:

-> Promoting the project nationally to make sure it reaches as many people as possible.

-> Documenting the exhibition professionally for posterity (and providing material to help us to persuade some national collections to take on Lizzys work for the future).

-> Archiving Lizzys work.

Additional funding would ensure we could do the first two of these and work towards the third, which isnt something we thought would be possible but now are beginning to think about seriously.

Read on for the full details of the campaign

We are raising money for a retrospective exhibition of the work of Margate-based artist and disability activist Lizzy Rose, who died in January 2022. The project is a collaboration between family, friends and organisations Lizzy worked with during her life.

The month-long exhibition (31st March - 23rd April 2023) will be held across multiple venues in Margate - at Crate, Limbo, Well Projects and Turner Contemporary - alongside a live event at the ICA in London, livestreamed by Wysing Broadcasts.

An online outreach programme will invite hospitalised and housebound artists to share their work and stories. Lizzy herself spent an much of her time in hospital from 2010. Determined to continue making work, she developed new strategies for turning this space into one of making and sharing. In doing so, she helped to define a new, more accessible and inclusive form of artistic practice.

We have applied to Arts Council England and a number of Trusts and Foundations for project funding but this crowdfunder is a vital part of how we make this project happen and we need your donations, however small or large.

About Lizzy Rose

Lizzy had Crohn's disease, a chronic autoimmune condition affecting the gut which, in Lizzy's case, led to intestinal failure. Lizzy's worldview was shaped by her experiences and awareness of the precarity of life, and her later work directly and politically addressed chronic illness, and how society deals with it.

Lizzy spent an increasing amount of time in hospital from 2010 onwards. She made the circumstances work for her, turning her hospital bed into a studio. The work she made documents and reflects on the daily reality of this environment. She used social media to ensure it was seen when traditional avenues were not accessible to her. If the hospital became a studio, online technologies became an alternative to galleries. Her work was innovative in foregrounding the role of technology and social media for the chronically ill community.

She was born in Australia but grew up in Kent with her mum Christine and stepdad Bill (who appeared often in her work). She studied at Central Saint Martins and then as an associate of Open School East. She lived in Kent for most of her life and was based in Margate, a place she loved. She lived in Arlington House, a tower block with views over Dreamland and Margate Beach, with Margot, her beloved Chihuahua dog. She worked with many local grassroots organisations including Margate Museum where she was a volunteer, collaborating on an exhibition about the towns history with mods and rockers. She was co-curator at Limbo, part of Crate's Programme Team and staff member at Turner Contemporary.

We want to share with a wide audience how Lizzy's ideas, especially her long-running interest in giving voice to hidden communities, developed over her whole adult life.

We know there are many people in Margate who will remember Lizzy and want to help us celebrate her life and work. We think there will be many others who will be touched by her story and want to have the chance to see her work. Together we can make this happen.

What your support will fund: The exhibition and outreach programme

Lizzy left a request with her mother that there be an exhibition of her work in the event of her death. Lizzy was an incredibly effective activist and a very good artist. Your support will enable us to bring together an amazing body of work and share it with the widest possible audience. It was Lizzy's wish -and we intend to do it in style: paying tribute to a woman who touched the lives of many with her humour, resilience and grace.

The programme will explore the important themes of Lizzy's work. It will introduce her practice and ideas to many for the first time, restaging works and showing works that have never been exhibited.

Curated at Lizzy's request by her friends Matthew de Pulford and Katie Hare (who have been developing the project since spring 2022), the month-long programme will bring together artwork from throughout Lizzy's career. The exhibition will include large scale, immersive installations, delicate drawings and films and will take place in multiple venues across Margate with an event curated by Lizzy's friend and collaborator Leah Clements at the ICA in London, streamed by Wysing Broadcasts. The works selected span a decade, from her degree show at Central Saint Martins to her last completed video work, Sick Blue Sea (2019).

The outreach programme will be modelled on Lizzy's Hospital Watercolour Club, a project she instigated during a long hospital stay in 2013. Over a four week period she asked her visitors to paint with her and shared the results on social media. Running concurrently to the exhibition, the outreach programme will encourage housebound people and hospital patients to share their own artwork on Instagram, as Lizzy did. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, selected posts will be spotlighted by Shape Arts and other project partners.

The project will be led and shaped by Katie Hogben, whose recent project Breaking Apart the Sick Girl Trope at Margate's Pie Factory Gallery explored the damaging stereotypes used to represent women and illness. thesickgirltrope.wordpress.com.

About Crate

Crate Studio & Project Space is a registered charity providing artist studios and exhibition space with the core aim of supporting young and emerging artists and curators. Lizzy had a long association with Crate, as both exhibiting artist and a member of our Programming Team. She was a much valued colleague and a dear friend. cratespace.co.uk

In Partnership

Crate has developed the project in partnership with Lizzy's family and organisations Lizzy worked during her life, they are; Turner Contemporary, Limbo Arts and Well Projects in Margate, the ICA in London, Wysing Arts in Cambridgeshire and Shape, the national arts and disability organisation.

You can find out more about our partners by visiting their websites.

turnercontemporary.org