SPECULATIVE BODIES
Speculative Bodies is an evening of screenings and performances held as part of the exhibition Unruly Bodies. The event proposes that the body is not a unified whole, or opposed to nature. Works included excavate myth and archive to enact speculative figures that reach through history, trouble categories of the ‘human’, and unseat normativity. The body here, is in movement, metamorphosis, and transformation.
PARTICIPANTS: Ufuoma Essi, Louis Newby & Laila Majid, Anna Perach, Clémentine Bedos, Verity Coward, Assia Ghendir, Holly Hunter.
PROGRAMME:
Exhibition on view: 6–7pm
Performances and screenings: 7–8:30pm
Metamorph is a long-term collaboration between Holly Hunter, Assia Ghendir, Verity Coward and Clémentine Bedos. The transmedia project includes a 16mm film, along with prosthetics, text, sound and performance-based works, which draw on the myth of Daphne, who transforms into a laurel tree to escape the rape of Apollo. In Metamorph this narrative – which is traditionally interpreted as resulting in Daphne’s ‘eternal silence’ or ‘loss of self’ – is reframed through a queer, transcultural and multi-species lens to consider alternative interpretations around agency and the character’s relationship to landscape.
The film south florida sky, Laila Majid & Louis Newby, imagines the comic hero Swamp Thing, present in its physical form; rendered fluid, enmeshed within the biologically diverse space of the swamp. The work reanimates a comic frame, paying homage to the hand-drawn context and providing a queered unravelling of the character. This process of disidentification portrays both the swamp and the body as a site of radical interconnectivity.
Bodies In Dissent (2021) by Ufuoma Essi is an exploration of the body as a central site of remembrance and resistance. Exploring ideas around ‘bodily insurgency’ and using the body as an archive, as a point of return, a position of refusal, a broker between transgenerational life and histories, past, present and future.
Anna Perach’s two wearable sculptures, The Wandering Pelvis and Warrior (2022) feature in the exhibition. The performance explores the liminal space between the self and the other and the tension between the desire to merge and separate. The Wandering Pelvis plays with the ancient idea of the womb that moves freely in the woman’s body. During the performance the sculpture grows organs and mutates into a living being.
BIOGRAPHIES:
Ufuoma Essi (b. 1995) is a video artist and filmmaker from Lewisham, South East London. She works predominantly with film and moving image as well as photography and sound. Her work revolves around Black feminist epistemology and the configuration of displaced histories. The archive forms an essential medium for her as an artist and it’s through explorations with the archive that she aims to interrogate and disrupt the silences and gaps of political and historical narratives. By using the archive as a process of unlearning and discovery she seeks to re-centre the marginalised histories of the Black Atlantic and specific histories of Black women. Drawing from a range of influences including Black popular culture, films, music, historical texts and Black feminist theory from writers such as Claudia Jones to Daphne Brooks. Essi’s work also seeks to examine the historical and contemporary links between the Black Atlantic and explores intersectional themes. Her films have been screened and exhibited at film festivals, institutions and galleries both nationally and internationally including Gasworks, Lisson Gallery, South London Gallery, Magasin, Centre National d’Art Contemporain (CNAC), Criterion Collection, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Galerie Rudolfinum, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Maysles Documentary Center, Black Star Film Festival and LUX.
Metamorph is a long-term collaboration between Clémentine Bedos, Holly Hunter, Verity Coward and Assia Ghendir. The multi-disciplinary project, which includes 16mm film, along with prosthetics, text, sound and performance-based works, draws on the classical myth of Daphne; the nymph who transformed into a laurel tree in order to escape being raped by the god Apollo. In Metamorph, this narrative – which is traditionally interpreted as resulting in Daphne’s ‘eternal silence’ or ‘loss of self ’ – is reframed through a queer, transcultural and multi-species lens to consider alternative interpretations around issues of consent and social agency in their becoming-tree, and their relationship to landscape.
Anna Perach (b. 1985, Ukraine) is an Israeli artist living and working in London, UK. She holds an MFA in fine art (distinction) from Goldsmiths, University of London (2020). In 2022 Anna presented a solo show with Edel Assanti in London and took part in Artissima with ADA gallery where she won the Carol Rama award. She has exhibited internationally at galleries including: Richard Saltoun (London, UK), Sommer gallery (Basel, Switzerland) and Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art (Herzliya, Israel). In 2021 Anna took part in Arco Madrid 2021 with The Ryder gallery and received the Ingram prize award. In 2020 she received a studio award with Sarabande, The Lee Alexander McQueen foundation as well as the Gilbert Bayes award. Recent publications include Artforum and Art Maze Mag.
Laila Majid (b. 1996 Abu Dhabi, UAE) and Louis Newby (b. 1996, London, UK) work collaboratively. Recent solo shows as part of their collaborative practice include Beautiful Girls on Top! (2023) Xxijra Hii at The Shop at Sadie coles HQ, London, SKINFLICKS (2022), Xxijra Hii, London, not yet (2022), San Mei Gallery, London, healthy pink (2020), springseason, London, and hold my hand by the tail (2019), Transition Two, London. Their work has also been featured in group exhibitions including City Entwined (2022), Paradise Row, London, Sour Persimmons Chasm (2019), Ex Baldessarre, curated by Andy Holden, and Hydrangea (2019), Underground Flower, Nakhon Ratchasima. In 2020, they were awarded funding by the Elephant Trust, were recipients of the Omni Colour Artists Award (2021) and have recently been selected as part of the CIRCA x Dazed Class of 2022.
Speculative Bodies is an evening of screenings and performances held as part of the exhibition Unruly Bodies. The event proposes that the body is not a unified whole, or opposed to nature. Works included excavate myth and archive to enact speculative figures that reach through history, trouble categories of the ‘human’, and unseat normativity. The body here, is in movement, metamorphosis, and transformation.
PARTICIPANTS: Ufuoma Essi, Louis Newby & Laila Majid, Anna Perach, Clémentine Bedos, Verity Coward, Assia Ghendir, Holly Hunter.
PROGRAMME:
Exhibition on view: 6–7pm
Performances and screenings: 7–8:30pm
Metamorph is a long-term collaboration between Holly Hunter, Assia Ghendir, Verity Coward and Clémentine Bedos. The transmedia project includes a 16mm film, along with prosthetics, text, sound and performance-based works, which draw on the myth of Daphne, who transforms into a laurel tree to escape the rape of Apollo. In Metamorph this narrative – which is traditionally interpreted as resulting in Daphne’s ‘eternal silence’ or ‘loss of self’ – is reframed through a queer, transcultural and multi-species lens to consider alternative interpretations around agency and the character’s relationship to landscape.
The film south florida sky, Laila Majid & Louis Newby, imagines the comic hero Swamp Thing, present in its physical form; rendered fluid, enmeshed within the biologically diverse space of the swamp. The work reanimates a comic frame, paying homage to the hand-drawn context and providing a queered unravelling of the character. This process of disidentification portrays both the swamp and the body as a site of radical interconnectivity.
Bodies In Dissent (2021) by Ufuoma Essi is an exploration of the body as a central site of remembrance and resistance. Exploring ideas around ‘bodily insurgency’ and using the body as an archive, as a point of return, a position of refusal, a broker between transgenerational life and histories, past, present and future.
Anna Perach’s two wearable sculptures, The Wandering Pelvis and Warrior (2022) feature in the exhibition. The performance explores the liminal space between the self and the other and the tension between the desire to merge and separate. The Wandering Pelvis plays with the ancient idea of the womb that moves freely in the woman’s body. During the performance the sculpture grows organs and mutates into a living being.
BIOGRAPHIES:
Ufuoma Essi (b. 1995) is a video artist and filmmaker from Lewisham, South East London. She works predominantly with film and moving image as well as photography and sound. Her work revolves around Black feminist epistemology and the configuration of displaced histories. The archive forms an essential medium for her as an artist and it’s through explorations with the archive that she aims to interrogate and disrupt the silences and gaps of political and historical narratives. By using the archive as a process of unlearning and discovery she seeks to re-centre the marginalised histories of the Black Atlantic and specific histories of Black women. Drawing from a range of influences including Black popular culture, films, music, historical texts and Black feminist theory from writers such as Claudia Jones to Daphne Brooks. Essi’s work also seeks to examine the historical and contemporary links between the Black Atlantic and explores intersectional themes. Her films have been screened and exhibited at film festivals, institutions and galleries both nationally and internationally including Gasworks, Lisson Gallery, South London Gallery, Magasin, Centre National d’Art Contemporain (CNAC), Criterion Collection, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Galerie Rudolfinum, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Maysles Documentary Center, Black Star Film Festival and LUX.
Metamorph is a long-term collaboration between Clémentine Bedos, Holly Hunter, Verity Coward and Assia Ghendir. The multi-disciplinary project, which includes 16mm film, along with prosthetics, text, sound and performance-based works, draws on the classical myth of Daphne; the nymph who transformed into a laurel tree in order to escape being raped by the god Apollo. In Metamorph, this narrative – which is traditionally interpreted as resulting in Daphne’s ‘eternal silence’ or ‘loss of self ’ – is reframed through a queer, transcultural and multi-species lens to consider alternative interpretations around issues of consent and social agency in their becoming-tree, and their relationship to landscape.
Anna Perach (b. 1985, Ukraine) is an Israeli artist living and working in London, UK. She holds an MFA in fine art (distinction) from Goldsmiths, University of London (2020). In 2022 Anna presented a solo show with Edel Assanti in London and took part in Artissima with ADA gallery where she won the Carol Rama award. She has exhibited internationally at galleries including: Richard Saltoun (London, UK), Sommer gallery (Basel, Switzerland) and Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art (Herzliya, Israel). In 2021 Anna took part in Arco Madrid 2021 with The Ryder gallery and received the Ingram prize award. In 2020 she received a studio award with Sarabande, The Lee Alexander McQueen foundation as well as the Gilbert Bayes award. Recent publications include Artforum and Art Maze Mag.
Laila Majid (b. 1996 Abu Dhabi, UAE) and Louis Newby (b. 1996, London, UK) work collaboratively. Recent solo shows as part of their collaborative practice include Beautiful Girls on Top! (2023) Xxijra Hii at The Shop at Sadie coles HQ, London, SKINFLICKS (2022), Xxijra Hii, London, not yet (2022), San Mei Gallery, London, healthy pink (2020), springseason, London, and hold my hand by the tail (2019), Transition Two, London. Their work has also been featured in group exhibitions including City Entwined (2022), Paradise Row, London, Sour Persimmons Chasm (2019), Ex Baldessarre, curated by Andy Holden, and Hydrangea (2019), Underground Flower, Nakhon Ratchasima. In 2020, they were awarded funding by the Elephant Trust, were recipients of the Omni Colour Artists Award (2021) and have recently been selected as part of the CIRCA x Dazed Class of 2022.
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