Manifesto Marathon,
Serpentine Gallery
18th-19th October 2008

SpRoUt are a UK-based artists collective. Founded in 2004, the group has a shifting membership but is currently formed of eight core members: Hannah Chiswell, Laura Cull, Amy Cunningham, Naomi Dawson, Samuel Dowd, Florian Roithmayr, Hayley Skipper & Sam Steer. Information about all of SpRoUt’s past projects can be found on the website: www.sproutart.co.uk . For information about the collective’s most recent project, Under Construction: [Staging the Future] – an Arts Council and British Council funded exhibition and residency which took place at the SC Gallery, Zagreb this September  – please see http://underconstruction.wikidot.com

In the beginning, they travelled to Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche, France where they held a sacred Rite, binding each one to the group. Every year, they return to the same spot – underneath an oak tree that was once struck by lightning.

A SpRoUt manifesto (in the style of a relay race), Part I took place as part of the Under Construction project in Croatia. Initiated by Laura Cull, this was a constraint-based writing project in which SpRoUt members were invited to submit a short text in response to a series of directives:

   Construct a manifesto containing particulars of a ship and its cargo for which entries are made well in advance

  Create a list of times gone by (after a past master)

  Concerning races relating to or near the horizon

  Compose a public declaration in the form of an open hand

  Collaboration as manifestation: the multiple body

These texts were then placed in relay batons – one for each member of the group.

A SpRoUt manifesto (in the style of a relay race), Part II invites the members of SpRoUt to participate in a second lap of this writing relay – submitting new texts in response to either the original constraints or the responses to the constraints generated in Part I. Written during the first day of the Serpentine event, the results of this writing project are scheduled to be performed by SpRoUt on Sunday at 6.20pm.

Artists