Anne Tallentire

Anne Tallentire is precise. Her new-ish studio in Gospel Oak, London, which she gives me a 360* virtual tour of as we introduce ourselves, is ​“3 mins 45 seconds door to door” from her home. It’s a converted garage underneath a housing block, managed as part of a whole complex by the London Mosaic School, she explains. 

Housing, infrastructure, and community are all prescient themes in Tallentire’s work. ​“What’s good about these studios apart from the proximity to my home – is that the project that houses the studios is also committed to community engagement. They provide facilities to support London’s young people and the local community at large. For me, working in the middle of the estate is, as a friend said, like being on a long term residency – where the concerns of my work are here in and of my environment.”

Having a studio is really important to her: ​“It’s the mental space as much as the physical space.” She doesn’t know if it’s momentum or chance or just post-Covid, but she’s had so many more visitors here than in her old studio. If I were a betting man, I’d say it’s momentum. For Tallentire hasn’t just been busy hosting studio visits since she received her Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists in 2018, she’s produced significant solo shows in Graz, Austria, at John Hansard Gallery in Southampton and at her gallery Hollybush Gardens in London, as well as having a major retrospective at the MAC in Belfast, continuing to run her peripatetic project ​‘hmn’ with Chris Fite-Wassilak, and so much more.

I put it to her that it seems to suit her, being busy, and she laughs gently.

It’s telling that space – storage space to be specific – was a major part of what she used her Award for too. ​“Affording storage was a big game changer. I was able to work on a larger scale.”

She credits receiving the Award with enabling her to develop significant aspects of her practice that required learning new skills and new ways of working, as well as materials previously unaffordable to her. She’d been nominated previously, so had given up hope. Then she got the call from Jane (Hamlyn, Chair of Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Visual Arts judging panel) while working with a local housing association on the exhibition in Graz, and ​“that turned out to be a really significant show in terms of a transition between one kind of working and another, so it was timely. My work was becoming more sculptural. Furthermore, she’d given up teaching after many decades at Central Saint Martins (she’s now Professor Emeritus) a few years prior, which, she explains, had not left her with the pension pot that correlated with the many years of service she’d given, as she had been working for many of them on part-time contracts.

“My giving up teaching, I mean I was ready to, I never called it retire, I always called it commencement. In my mind I was about to commence a re-engagement or a deeper engagement with my practice, which, although I had managed to maintain my practice all those years, it could now be without interruption.”

The Award took away the financial hit: 

She laughs again, and I’m struck by how we think of artists as exercising so much freedom through their vocation, and yet, time and time again, it’s clear how hard fought for that freedom is, practically, and mentally. 

The first thing Tallentire did was rent a large storage space to make space in her studio, something she’s continued ​“even though the money from the Award has long gone.” And with the new space, she was able to start to ​“play and experiment with the actual making aspect of what I do. I could use materials in ways I hadn’t before, and I honestly don’t feel I would have been able to do that without this opportunity.”

Tallentire uses industrial and found materials in her work, from large sheets of insulation material and laminates, to household objects, stationery and, latterly, cardboard: ​“I never would have imagined I would work with cardboard prior to this.” She chooses her words with care, repeating them for emphasis: ​“I think being able, really having time, really having time, that was free of anxiety, was the game changer for me. And at my stage of life, because I’m in my 70s now, it was a big surprise, to have that.” 

She goes on to share how she’s always had a keen awareness of the shortness of time – which has made her quite rigorous in how she operates. But what she needed within that, was ​“to actually expand further, into ​‘non-useful time’, where I could make mistakes in, or go down a wrong alley, and not worry about finding a way back to the original thought too quickly. So I could take more chances, risk more, basically, and that’s a practical thing, a structural thing, in my life.” Again, the freedom the Award offered her shines through, though she is quick to dampen any visions I might have of her completely letting go: ​“I was able to bring to that the discipline of all the other years, so although I was sad I hadn’t received it earlier, I was also able to harness that experience and bring that to bear.” It’s a reminder of how artists can make the most of any moment they are offered. 

Tallentire loved teaching and found it hard to give it up. ​“It was an amazing privilege to teach in an environment where you were responsible for creating productive conditions for learning, attempting to ensure academic content at the highest level, critical awareness and leadership. This and fighting for resources on the ground and providing the studio and technical environments was how I approached my work alongside the wonderful colleagues I had at Central Saint Martins.” She spent her first ten years teaching with Monica Ross on the Critical Fine Art Practice subject area: ​“which was forward thinking and influential, and from which I learnt a lot. That was how I approached it and I had great colleagues at St Martins.” She spent her first ten years teaching with Monica Ross on the Critical Fine Art Practice degree: ​“which was incredibly forward thinking and influential, and I learnt a lot. She sadly passed away some years ago, and I owe a lot to her and that time of my life forming my ideas about education.” 

Anne Tallentire (County Armagh, Northern Ireland) lives and works in London, UK. Her practice encompasses moving image, sculpture, installation, performance, and photography. Through visual and textual interrogation of everyday materials and structures, Tallentire’s work seeks to reveal systems that shape the built environment and the economics of labour. Her recent work has examined geographical dislocation and demarcation in relation to infrastructure. From 1993, Tallentire has also made work as part of the artist duo work-seth/tallentire with artist John Seth. She is also the co-organiser, with Chris Fite-Wassilak, of the peripatetic event series ​‘hmn’.

Recent solo exhibitions include measurement plan, Cromwell Place, London (2023); Material Distance, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (2022); But this material…, The MAC, Belfast, Ireland (2021); As happens, Hollybush Gardens, London (2020); Plan (…), Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria (2019); Shelter, Nerve Centre and Eighty81, both Londonderry, Northern Ireland, Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland, and FabLab Limerick, Ireland (all 2016); This and Other Things, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2010); and Irish Pavilion, 48th Venice Biennale (1999), among others. Group exhibitions include Vertices: Anne Tallentire and Olga Balema, Lismore Castle Arts, Co. Waterford (2024), Ireland; Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and Tate Britain, London (2023–24); Found Cities, Lost Objects: Women in the City, curated by Lubaina Himid, Lead Art Gallery, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol; Southampton City Art Gallery and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (2022–23); An Insular Rococo, Hollybush Gardens, London (2022); IMMA 30 Setting Out, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2021); REFUGE, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2021); Extrospection, Pi Artworks, London (2020); Truth: 24 Frames Per Second, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, USA (2017); Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980’s Britain, Tate Liverpool, UK (2014); Publish and be Damned, ICA, London (2013); and Anthology – for Lucy Reynolds, Film in Space, Camden Art Centre, London (2012), among others.

Her work is held in significant public collections, including Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Arts Council Collection, UK; Government Art Collection, UK; British Council Collection; Arts Council England Collection and Arts Council Ireland Collection. In 2018 Tallentire was the recipient of Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Awards for Artists; in 2022, Tallentire was the recipient of a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award. She is Professor Emerita at Central Saint Martins, where she taught from the early 1990s to 2014.