Ivan Smith

Migration Lead Artist


Ivan Smith

A Tourist Everywhere in Jaipur India


Ivan's work ranges in medium and materials from performance to video from installation to audio, kinetics and photography.

The work produced earlier in my career with the artist-led visual arts group Fine Rats International is crucial in respect to my ongoing concerns for the site-specific. Exploring space whether in the urban or rural landscapes or fixed within the walls of interior spaces the investigation centre’s around the space and the audience.

Direct action between artwork and audience drives a clear desire to confront contemporary issues, social order and the transparent borders within which societies exist.

Exhibitions and residencies Internationally in my early career included ‘All or Nothing’ at the Galerie de la Friche Belle de Mai, Marseille, ‘Bull’ première at the Musee de Marseille and ‘Breathing Space’ at Artspace, Sydney, Australia. In the UK shows included ‘Secret Life of Objects’ at Ikon Gallery. At the beginning of 2001 I was awarded the Henry Moore Fellowship in Sculpture at the University of Derby.

I now work predominately abroad on exhibitions, residencies and commissions,which include ‘toe the line…’ MAMÜ Gallery, Budapest, ‘Túlsó P’art retrospective’ Miskolc, Hungary, ‘Window Shopping’ El Huis Experimental Intermedia, Gent, Belgium, ‘Embodying the Scenery of Ecology’ Juming Museum, Taiwan, ‘The Good, the Bad & the Ugly’ at Ashish Balram Nagpal Galleries Mumbai, India.

Recent British exhibitions include ‘underpin’ at the Rest Gardens, Nottingham City Centre, ‘Penny Black’ and ‘TENSION’ at The Gooden Gallery, London, ‘Con_flict a state of disharmony’ at Derby Museum & Art Gallery, ‘The Charter of the Forest’ at The Collection & Usher Gallery Lincoln, ‘Webbing’ for the Wirksworth Festival 2011 and Künstlerkolonie and Creative House International Artist-in- Residence Programme in the Fichtelgebirge Germany 2012, SPATTER – Synthesis Exhibition Commissioned by Forefront for Manchester Science Festival, UK 2013. Chocolate Factory – Smith & Hersey commissioned by Quad & DCC, Derby, UK 2013. In 2015 I developed and curated an International artist residency ‘Home & Away’ in Wakefield in collaboration with The Art House, I also particapated in ‘A Tourist Everywhere’ an International artist residency in Jiapur, India organised by Sandarbh.

Ivan Smith's websie >


Migration is international residency, bringing together artists from India, Mexico, Belize and the UK to work alongside each other in Wakefield throughout May 2017. In response to the theme of ‘Migration’, the artists will develop new work that engages with the city and its people.