Forma

Oliver Frank Chanarin | Commission

A Perfect Sentence explores the shifting terrain of documentary photography: our drive for attention, the complexity of being seen and our anxiety of being overlooked. Commissioned and produced by Forma with eight partners, A Perfect Sentence is Oliver Frank Chanarin’s first UK solo project and will see multiple presentations across the country, public acquisitions, a digital platform and a publication.

Chris Rawcliffe, Artistic Director, Forma says:

A Perfect Sentence is by far Forma’s most monumental artist collaboration in our 20 years of commissioning and producing artist works. Oliver Frank Chanarin’s ambition on this epic endeavour was matched by the generosity of hundreds of participants from across the UK as well as the enthusiasm and crucial support from a network of museums and galleries, trusting funding bodies and over fifty local charities, organisations and leaders. The result is a project full of life and candour which will keep reinventing itself as it tours the UK.

Chanarin’s new commission is presented across a series of iterative exhibitions, premiering at KARST, Plymouth 25 January - 23 March 2024. Following the presentation at KARST, A Perfect Sentence will then be a highlight of Images Vevey Biennial, Switzerland in September 2024. Subsequently the exhibition will open at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in November 2024 and National Museum Cardiff in 2025, with additional presentation dates pending. A selection of Chanarin’s C-type prints were exhibited for the first time at Derby’s The Museum of Making earlier this year as a highlight of Format23, the UK’s leading photography biennial. The presentation programme and a publication designed and published by Loose Joints will be accompanied by digital outputs and public acquisitions in 2024.


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A Perfect
Sentence

Touring

A programme of exhibitions and presentations will take place across the UK over the next two years.

Current
7- 29 September 2024
Images Vevey Biennial of Visual Arts
Fondation Vevey ville d’images
Vevey, Switzerland

Recent
25 January - 23 March 2024
KARST
22 George Place, Stonehouse
Plymouth PL1 3NY

Partners

A Perfect Sentence was commissioned and produced with Forma in partnership with 8 institutions across the UK: Artes Mundi, Cardiff; KARST, Plymouth; Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London Corporation; Norfolk Museums Service (Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Norwich, and Time and Tide Museum, Great Yarmouth); originalprojects;, Great Yarmouth; QUAD, FORMAT International Photography festival and Derby Museums, Derby; and Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton. Commissioned in association with Images Vevey and Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales.

The production is supported by A Perfect Sentence’s co-commission and co-production partners, and has been made possible through generous funding from Arts Council England and Outset Contemporary Art Fund. 72 photographs will be gifted to six national collections, thanks to an Acquisition Commission grant from Art Fund. In addition, National Lottery through Arts Council Wales, Kick The Dust and City of London have supported the productions in Wales, Great Yarmouth and London respectively.

Press

Oliver Frank Chanarin’s Delicate Portrait of Post-Brexit Britain (AnOther, 28 June 2023)

Feeling seen: identity in modern Britain – in pictures(The Guardian, 27 June 2023)

Photographing Britain, from fetish clubs to church hall amateur dramatics (I-D Magazine, 27 June 2023)

Read more

A Perfect Sentence explores the shifting terrain of documentary photography: our drive for attention, the complexity of being seen and our anxiety of being overlooked. Commissioned and produced by Forma with eight partners, A Perfect Sentence is Oliver Frank Chanarin’s first UK solo project and will see multiple presentations across the country, public acquisitions, a digital platform and a publication.

Chris Rawcliffe, Artistic Director, Forma says:

A Perfect Sentence is by far Forma’s most monumental artist collaboration in our 20 years of commissioning and producing artist works. Oliver Frank Chanarin’s ambition on this epic endeavour was matched by the generosity of hundreds of participants from across the UK as well as the enthusiasm and crucial support from a network of museums and galleries, trusting funding bodies and over fifty local charities, organisations and leaders. The result is a project full of life and candour which will keep reinventing itself as it tours the UK.

Chanarin’s new commission is presented across a series of iterative exhibitions, premiering at KARST, Plymouth 25 January - 23 March 2024. Following the presentation at KARST, A Perfect Sentence will then be a highlight of Images Vevey Biennial, Switzerland in September 2024. Subsequently the exhibition will open at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in November 2024 and National Museum Cardiff in 2025, with additional presentation dates pending. A selection of Chanarin’s C-type prints were exhibited for the first time at Derby’s The Museum of Making earlier this year as a highlight of Format23, the UK’s leading photography biennial. The presentation programme and a publication designed and published by Loose Joints will be accompanied by digital outputs and public acquisitions in 2024.

Commissioned and produced by


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Co-commissioning and co-production partners

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Funders

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Oliver Frank Chanarin, with Eloise, 10 x 8 inches, C-type print, unique artist proof (#3784102246), 2023. Courtesy and © the artist. Commissioned and produced by Forma, in collaboration with eight UK organisations. Supported by Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

Touring

A programme of exhibitions and presentations will take place across the UK over the next two years.

Current
7- 29 September 2024
Images Vevey Biennial of Visual Arts
Fondation Vevey ville d’images
Vevey, Switzerland

Recent
25 January - 23 March 2024
KARST
22 George Place, Stonehouse
Plymouth PL1 3NY

Partners

A Perfect Sentence was commissioned and produced with Forma in partnership with 8 institutions across the UK: Artes Mundi, Cardiff; KARST, Plymouth; Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London Corporation; Norfolk Museums Service (Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Norwich, and Time and Tide Museum, Great Yarmouth); originalprojects;, Great Yarmouth; QUAD, FORMAT International Photography festival and Derby Museums, Derby; and Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton. Commissioned in association with Images Vevey and Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales.

The production is supported by A Perfect Sentence’s co-commission and co-production partners, and has been made possible through generous funding from Arts Council England and Outset Contemporary Art Fund. 72 photographs will be gifted to six national collections, thanks to an Acquisition Commission grant from Art Fund. In addition, National Lottery through Arts Council Wales, Kick The Dust and City of London have supported the productions in Wales, Great Yarmouth and London respectively.

Press

Oliver Frank Chanarin’s Delicate Portrait of Post-Brexit Britain (AnOther, 28 June 2023)

Feeling seen: identity in modern Britain – in pictures(The Guardian, 27 June 2023)

Photographing Britain, from fetish clubs to church hall amateur dramatics (I-D Magazine, 27 June 2023)

Read more