Hidden in the Triangle…

On Friday evening we found ourselves in a dark, disused retail unit, full of secret corners, hidden somewhere in the Triangle shopping centre. For the next few weeks, this will be the home for the Consulate of Cornerhouse, ‘operating as an official off-site Cornerhouse on foreign soil’. A kind of ghostly echo of the real Cornerhouse, the Consulate includes a copy of the Director’s office, filled with good-humoured but provocative texts and images to inspire debate about arts organisations in an age of cuts. This is also a space for people to contribute their own ideas for plans and projects at Cornerhouse; in the words of Archipelago, the group behind the Consulate project, ‘in an age where crowd sourcing and audience participation take on an ever increasing amount of the creative decisions, what is left for the staff to do?’

The focal point for the preview event was the process of face-casting of Cornerhouse staff. Continuing the idea of the Consulate as a kind of echo of Cornerhouse itself, the casts will be displayed at the Consulate, while the sculptures created from them will be shown back at Cornerhouse, forming a physical manifestation for the interdependent relationship and exchange of ideas between the two spaces. For the brave staff who put themselves forward this is what they had to look forward to…

The face-casting will continue from today to Friday 25th February in the afternoons at the Triangle, and anyone curious is welcome to drop by to watch. Visitors to Cornerhouse can also become editors of a public screen, and, Archipelago warn, ‘experience the approaches of our unofficial/official market researcher’ from

Consulate of Cornerhouse runs until Sunday 6th March at the Triangle as an interactive space to explore and discuss arts organisational structures and relationships between artists, curators, institutions and audiences, ‘an active drop-in space for independent thinkers and straight talking (ant)agonists’. Drop by to suggest a proposal, find out about Archipelago’s practice, or just have a chat with these temporary Cornerhouse ambassadors in their reappropriated corner of forgotten retail space. And from tomorrow onwards don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled for the staff face sculptures in the Cornerhouse bar.

The Consulate of Cornerhouse is a Cornerhouse Micro Commission, supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Laura Swift
Cornerhouse Digital Reporter

@swiftlaura