Oasis in the Sand: Cactus contemporary art space launches in Liverpool

It is the day after Sebastian Jefford’s exhibition opening at Cactus, housed within Liverpool’s newly expanded Royal Standard complex – and the gallery is suspiciously clean. The only evidence of last night’s party is a few indented heel marks on the otherwise pristine floor. “We cleaned before you got here,” laughs Orr, Cactus’ curator and founder. “It was pretty busy last night.”

Orr came to The Royal Standard (TRS) as a studio holder in 2013, after graduating from Manchester School of Art and just as TRS were developing their new building within the Vauxhall Road site. He had been working on a project called Hotel, in Manchester, with fellow artists Calum Crawford and Guy Broadhurst, which invited artists to exhibit in shop fronts and empty spaces around the city, but Orr was keen to open up something more permanent. “I got tired of filling out risk assessments and getting insurance so a permanent space was the best move,” he says. Orr saw the potential of a new space in Liverpool. “I felt like there wasn’t really any exciting programmes that supported emerging artists. Liverpool has a number of amazing galleries and the Biennial, who have been really supportive. There is obviously The Royal Standard, but they are quite well established now so there was definitely a need for something new.” Previous involvement with Rogue Studios in Manchester, which has two project spaces that support each other, led Orr to believe the relationship between TRS and Cactus’ programme could work.

Orr has done quite a bit of work on the gallery space to get it up to standard (“It was too officey”), removing a wall to open up the space and replacing the floor with OSB (oriented strand board). This addition is as much about practicality as it is about the intended look and feel of Cactus: “I'd never seen a gallery use OSB for flooring, it’s about establishing a visual identity or brand. I want people to know immediately that it's Cactus when they see documentation online,” says Orr.

Cactus’ online presence is important – Orr has ambition for the space that reaches beyond the local Liverpool or even Northwest arts scene. “I prefer to think about where I fit in the UK and internationally,” he says. “Our approach to social media is that it allows Cactus to go reach beyond constraints of its physical space. I use the Cactus Twitter more like a DJ, just tweeting things I’m interested in rather than as a marketing tool, and our Facebook page and website are also important. They are as much a part of the project as the gallery.” Today, of course, especially with galleries and spaces outside of London or city centres, a large portion of your active audience does only exist online – and might follow your programme religiously, having never stepped inside your space. “You need to be good at communicating what you're about,” says Orr.

So what is Cactus about? “Good solo projects,” says Orr. “It's really exciting to work with one or two artists at a time because you can give them all of your attention and work through ideas together.” Orr finds the process of making exhibitions useful as research for his own art-making practice – inviting artists who he would like to have a conversation with is, he hopes, a process that is useful for both of them. Sebastian Jefford’s work had first been recommended by a friend and, with a penchant for colourful protrusions and in combining and manipulating ready-mades, there are certain similarities between the two artists' work.

For opening exhibition This Inferior Mirage, Jefford has chosen to alter all the elements of the Cactus space, painting the walls a washed-out desert brown and laying a new floor in a similar colour, suggesting the arid environment of an exotic archaeological dig. A series of objects is arranged on both surfaces: dark green Fimo pots, piles of tyre-marked white blobs; a black camera bracket supports a slab of white plaster in a way that suggests a sizeable portion of Mr Whippy is being analysed by microscope. Panels of photographs, obscured by a wrapping of the soft grid of non-slip carpet underlay, are hung on the walls in series, seeming like speakers but emitting nothing.

“I see the floors, walls and everything else as part of the work,” says Jefford. “I’m more interested in moving away from making exhibitions composed of a number of singular objects and making more immersive environments. I like the idea that the viewer can be 'in' the work.”  More of a stage-set approach than an installation, Jefford is interested in “the residue, detritus, or aftermath of a fictional event or activity – in a way,  a performative residue. It's about generating a sensory, tactile atmosphere that offers potential, but is always teetering on the edge of collapse.”

Based in Bristol, working out of Spike Island Studios, Jefford has had a prolific 12 months, with exhibitions at SW3 (Glasgow), Supercollider (Blackpool) and Favorite Goods (LA). He is currently installing as part of a group exhibition from Spike Island Associates, When Two or More are Together, opening at Glasgow International, and preparing to move to London for an MA at the Royal Academy Schools in September. In 2013 he was selected for the Regional Interference exhibition programme at WORKS|PROJECTS (Bristol). “The support I received over that period was incredible,” says Jefford. “It allowed me to push what I was doing.” The same is true of Jefford’s relationship with Orr during the process of the Cactus show. “I couldn’t be here until the install, so a lot of conversations happened via phone and email. Joe had the floor and walls already done when I got here meaning I could really focus on the details.” Orr sees his curatorial role as a sort of invisible supportive infrastructure. “My 'curating' is making the show happen, supporting the artist, getting as many people as I can there and trying to make sure the artist gets something out of the show,” he says. “I don’t like to use the term curator as it suggests an unnecessary hierarchy. The best curation is when you don’t really notice it at all." The work, for Orr, is central to everything – but the question of how to make it work is also on his mind.

There is a certain momentum to a Biennial year in Liverpool – a good time to launch a new space, and for Orr to test out his ideas about how Cactus will function in practice. He has about six months of exhibitions and projects already lined up, with Manchester-based Daniel McMillan and Lucas Wilson invited to show together directly after Jefford.

“I’m interested in not just showing artists' work, but representing them, supporting them. I want to concentrate on doing good shows, but finding a way to be a financially sustainable one. I'm going to be at a few art fairs this year,” says Orr, “ acting as a kind of hybrid space, somewhere between artist-led and commercial. We’ll see how it goes.”

Right now, however, with the first exhibition up, he can take a breath. It's going to be a busy year ahead.