As If was a series of performances that expand on the exhibition Transparent Things’ premise of fiction as methodology. As if ‘this’ or ‘that’, was an exercise of ‘fictioning’ that created propositions to confront the status quo. Fiction can be applied as a tool of world-making towards highlighting the often invisible, yet extant, structures that dictate our current reality.

Taking place in the afternoon of Saturday 29 February – a somewhat fictitious day in itself – As If presented four consecutive performances that combined text, choreography, sound and visual cues, by artists Verity Birt, Rebecca Jagoe, Reba Maybury and Korallia Stergides. These performances constructed new imaginaries, with the intent to raise awareness, critique, and offer alternatives to ones’ present.

Co-curated by Goldsmiths MFA Curating students Harriett Henderson, Dot Jia, Mariana Lemos, Clementine Proby and Melanie Scheiner.

BIOGRAPHIES

Verity Birt is currently a practice based PhD researcher at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and Northumbria University (BxNu) in Newcastle, UK. Birt’s practice involves writing, performance, sculpture and film-making situated in a Western feminist tradition. She works to perform stories which empower womxn and other non-conforming bodies (human and more-than) in our destructive patriarchal and androcentric society. Forthcoming exhibitions include: YOKE, Strauhof Museum Zürich, CH and a solo show at Well Projects, Margate, UK. Birt has previously exhibited at: Black Tower Projects, London, UK; Well Projects, Margate, UK; Art Earth Tech, London, UK; On Curating Project Space, Zürich, CH; Thames Side Gallery, London, UK; Caraboo Projects, Bristol, UK; TOMA, Southend-on-Sea, UK; Artbyte, London, UK.

Rebecca Jagoe is an artist, art writer and editor. Their practice examines how within European culture, the Feminine as an ideology and identity has been shaped at the meeting point of medical rhetoric and the aesthetics of high fashion. As a genderqueer, non-binary person AFAB, they reinforce that femininity is neither an essentialist component of female gender identification; nor is femininity itself essentialist. Jagoe has previously exhibited and performed at: Jupiter Woods, London, UK; Wimbledon Space, London, UK; Sissi Club, Marseilles FR; Kelder Projects, London, UK; De Pimlico Projects, London, UK. Their writing has been published in The Happy Hypocrite 11-The Silver Bandage, Orlando Magazine Issue 3: Beyond the Body and The Interjection Calendar published by Montez Press.

Reba Maybury is a writer, artist, lecturer and political dominatrix. In 2015 she founded Wet Satin Press, a publishing company exploring eccentric corporate male sexuality and in 2017 she released he first novella titled Dining with Humpty Dumpty. She teaches a program in subversive thinking at Central Saint Martins, has her own radio show Mistress Rebecca’s World on NTS and is represent by Arcadia Missa. Maybury has previously exhibited and ready at: Karma International, Los Angeles, US; Bridget Donahue, New York, US; Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, US; Schloss, Oslo, NO; Balice Hertling, Paris, FR; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, PL; White Columns, New York, US; P.P.O.W, New York, US; ICA, London, UK; Luma Westbau, Zurich, CH

Korallia Stergides is an artist currently studying on an MA in Fine Art Media at The Slade School Of Art, London, UK. Her work interweaves choreographic and spatial processes with experimental film, objects, poetry, performance and installation to construct an alternative place of fiction. These works become hyper collages of fragments informed by autobiographical narrative and historical and ecological fact. Stergides has previously performed and been screened at: Phytorio Project Space, Nicosia, CR; Well Projects, London, UK; Milton Keynes Arts Centre, Milton Keynes, UK; Toynbee Studios, London, UK; Chisenhale Art Place, London, UK; Black Tower Projects, London, UK; Swiss Church, London, UK; Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK; Arnolfini, Bristol, UK; ICA, London, UK.

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