Beth Starling
Our brief was to ‘modernise the practices of teaching, making, displaying and researching within the Tate Modern, London’. The portfolio establishes a line of inquiry which draws influence from modernist concepts and aims for stronger user connection, participation and social inclusion within the four practices. Modernism opposes traditionally accepted ideas and aims to forge new ways of understanding society. It aims to empower the masses removing power from the elite institution. It is sometimes playful in its approach, taking chances in order to question normality. It encompasses themes of collaboration, inclusion, rebellion and honesty.
Modern Galleries should design spaces that bridge the gap between Art, Galleries and Social Inequalities. The hub/workshop I propose travels across site. It has numerous configurations within its core frame, these are user controlled. Its three phases encourage Listening and discussion, giving a voice to ‘the everyday person’ Secondly an active inclusion phase which encourages the production of art enriched by further discussion. Lastly display mode, which takes on a passive rebellious stance. The phases of this hub are designed to invite activist groups or those whom experience social inequality to inhabit the space. To use it as a place to give voice to their cause. Art will be generated as a way of exploring and expressing ideas.




This project aims to develop phenomena explored through the creation and recording of the cartographic device. It explores themes of choice, change, nature and spaces that are reactive but can also be controlled by the user. All phenomena discovered throughout portfolio investigations. The artist in residence space I propose interprets the day-to-day functioning of the artists system, where they operate and display their work. The artist should be able to work, be productive and also have access to privacy. It questions what a studio space is, could, and should be. Expanding on how art should be experienced , and how evolving levels of comfort can impact how private a space is and how public it may become. The installation feeds off the piers structure for its strength but goes against the artificial character of the pier by connecting its users back to nature, and explores the idea of temporary experience.




This cartographic device was a group project between myself and Adrian Petkov. We designed a device to measure shared phenomena discovered through our own journey mapping (please see portfolio for maps). My Cartographic map was separated into three sections. Each part of the journey was experienced differently dependent on how well I knew the area, the speed I traveled through the space and how comfortable I felt. The device aimed to measure its users level of comfort in a given location based on which mode they set the device to, and how the mark recorded altered dependent on physical obstacles. Time spent in a space alters how we experience it.

The video below was an introduction to a workbook developed in my sustainable design module. Within the workbook I began to question current practices of sustainable consumerism, exploring the comparisons between linear and circular processes of consumption. Further to this, within the workbook expanded this line of inquiry to question the role of interior design in encouraging sustainable consumer behaviour.
Contact Beth Starling
- beth_starling@hotmail.co.uk
- Note
- Please feel free to contact me via email if you would like more information about any of my work.