Raven Row

56 Artillery Lane    London
21 April to 11 June 2017.

The exhibition provides a partial map of the domestic as an unstable zone.

http://www.ravenrow.org/current/

For this exhibition ‘home’ is imagined as a space for social, sexual and political agency, and ‘the domestic’ as a stage on which kinship and self are formed and transformed through acts of love, cruelty and indifference.

A group of works from the recent past and present has been gathered and joined to a weekly live programme. Visual vocabularies range from bodily waste and bacterial growth to intimate self-imaging. Sculptural forms make reference to temporary shelter and collective occupation, while films are diaristic, improvised and quasi-fictional. The archive is invoked as a ‘homemaking’ space. For instance, photographic ‘genomegrams’ by Fiona Clark describe a personal response to trauma, Ingrid Pollard’s film reflects on her parents' correspondence and Barbara T. Smith’s books comprise homemade Xerox impressions of the artist’s body and images of her children. Installations by Martine Syms and Ben Burgis & Ksenia Pedan work directly with the buildings’ fabric, while a film by Jenna Bliss – commissioned for the exhibition – explores the class, race and gender dynamics of drug use within domestic contexts in Puerto Rico and New York. Colonial legacies and indigenous activism are explored as well as gentrification and familial histories. The exhibition provides a partial map of the domestic as an unstable zone.

A publication has been made for the exhibition in which Amy Tobin builds a picture of a little-documented exhibition titled A Woman’s Place, made in 1974 by a group of artists in a squatted house and women’s centre in South London.

The live programme of performances, seminars, screenings and workshops extends the project to include, amongst other concerns, co-housing, modular architecture, non-monogamy, the domestic in narrative film and fiction, living with illness and health activism.

Participants in 56 Artillery Lane include Chantal Akerman, Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski, Soofiya Andry, Dr Meg-John Barker, Khairani Barokka, Phoebe Blatton, Rizvana Bradley, Jenna Bliss, Ben Burgis & Ksenia Pedan, Autumn Chacon, Adam Christensen, Fiona Clark, Lucy Clout, Fran Cottell, Phoebe Davies & Nandi Bhebhe, Jemma Desai, Fenixº, Keira Fox, Richard Fung, Harry Giles, Carry Gorney, Alice Hattrick, Candice Hopkins, Juliet Jacques, Alice Jones, Bhanu Kapil, Morag Keil & Georgie Nettell, Rudy Loewe, Mira Mattar, Zinzi Minott, Merata Mita, Irenosen Okojie, Lucy Orta, Meera Osborne, Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Ingrid Pollard, Steve Reinke, Christine Roche, RUSS, Sisters of Jam, Stanley Spencer, Barbara T. Smith, Martine Syms, Anna Szaflarski, Nina Wakeford, Kate Walker, Ed Webb-Ingall, Ria Wilson, Anicka Yi and Rehana Zaman.

The exhibition is curated by Amy Budd and Naomi Pearce, with input from Amy Ball, Gail Chester, Althea Greenan, Lucie Kinchin, Alexandra Kokoli, Imogen and Catriona Laing, Robert Leckie, Suzy Mackie, Sue Madden, Bernard G Mills, Ciara Moloney, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Su Richardson, Alex Sainsbury, Amy Tobin, Mercedes Vicente and Ed Webb-Ingall. 

Frack Off – Taranaki Artists and Writers

From 5 - 26^th March is the Frack Off Exhibition in response to People’s Climate Rally in New Plymouth involving a blockade outside the TSB Showplace, venue of the government’s Petroleum Conference.

This way up

This work is in response to living at Tikorangi in a zone of unconventional oil and gas development with fracking.

The cloth covered suitcases contain

imaginary items dating from 1787

cheese and red onion sandwiches, fruit, shredded court papers

a piece of string, a pencil, a knife and a handkerchief

some words from Peter Winter of Motunui, Frances George of Kapuni, Aileen Foley and Freda White - both of Bell Block and Aila Taylor of Waiongona.

The baggage tags are embroidered with the terms used for fracking:

hydraulic fracturing

well stimulation

fracking

fracing

induced

hydrofracturing

enhanced recovery

well workover

intervention

behind pipe opportunities

well entry campaign

The bottled water is from bore and rain water within 1 km of a Fracked well

Te iwi o te wāhi kore

Kawakawa

The leaves that are placed amongst this work, Te iwi o te wāhi kore, are from the kawakawa tree. This tree grows throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. Kawakawa has medicinal properties and is regarded for its innate power and life-giving properties.

The leaves are used in many ways and plays important roles in Māori tikanga (rituals and customs) and rongoā (medicine).

Here, we have placed kawakawa on the images of those that have passed into the spiritual world.

Each week, we (myself and descendants of these people) gather fresh kawakawa leaves from a relevant site and bring them to the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. By placing these leaves on the image we acknowledge the active life force of these people. Then we return the dried leaves to replenish the source.     

This act indicates that these people are alive and present in this room; conscious of the continued despoliation of their lands and fortifying the efforts of their descendants who work to protect and restore this environment.     

The leaves from 12 January 2017.