Archive of Exhibitions 2009, 10 &11

 
                                                                                           
Encounters@198  
12th September -7th October 2011  

Screen shot’s from Encounters, Diana Di Silva 
 
198 in collaboration with People's Palace Projects and Refocus have been hosting a residency with interactive artist Gary Stewart, and a group 
of young people from the Refocus Project in Syria.   Drawing on the Transforming Lives, work that Gary has been doing in the UK and Brazil, 
Encounters furthers the work that Gary has been doing with young people to investigate how they transform their world through the arts. 
Defined as a chance meeting one that is unplanned or unexpected Encounters, has brought together young people from the UK and Syria to 
share their work, experiences, explore the theme of Encounters and create work together using VJ, performance and media technologies. 

Encounters@198 is produced by 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, UNICEF Syria,  People's Palace Projects and Refocus Projects 
  
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission and British Council. This project has received support from the Arts and 
Humanities Research Council's Beyond Text Programme.   

http://www.garystewart.org/   
http://www.refocusproject.org/ 
http://www.peoplespalace.org.uk/ 

 

 

Origination
Katy and Rebecca Beinart

16th June – 5th August 2011

 

Images from Origination Market Stall, Brixton Market, Popes Road, May 2011 and Origination Exhibition. Images by Katy and Rebecca Beinart

Origination is an ongoing collaboration between sisters and artists Katy and Rebecca Beinart. The project explores how we describe our origins, both in genealogical and environmental terms, and how relationships between people and places form our sense of identity and belonging. The work concocts mixtures of memory and history, mythology and fact, to understand how we adapt to places, and how we shape places, as we migrate.

In May 2011, the artists ran a market stall in Popes Road, Brixton Market, offering memory collection and archiving services. They exchanged Memory Preservation Salts for stories about ancestral journeys and places of origin. Through 54 conversations, the role of chance and coincidence in the shaping of destinies, lives and locations emerged strongly, reflecting Kurt Vonnegut's comment: “all persons living and dead are purely coincidental".

In this exhibition, new artworks take these stories and memories, and translate and classify them through a variety of instruments and methods. These transformed narratives become a collective biography of the market, made by its users, encompassing a vast array of journeys, points of origin, and fragments of history. The real and imagined relics of past lives become pieces of a new puzzle, offering the viewer the opportunity to make their own connections and associations.

Also on show are works that draw on the artists' personal family history and stories of Jewish migration, made in response to sites in South Africa and the UK.

Origination Events

Last Fridays
29th July 2011
Gallery open til 9pm

Dinner Party
30 July 6-8pm
Performance featuring rites and recipes from the artists' research.
Brockwell Park Community Greenhouse, Brockwell Park, Norwood Road SE24 9BJ

 

Local Anaesthesia

The Desensitisation of the Urban Experience
6th May-3rd June 2011

Supported by ASC Studios

Brett Van Ort’s first UK based solo show Minescape, is a series of interactive photographs, showing Bosnian landscapes and the land mines that still occupy them 15 years after the end of the Bosnian War.

Brett travelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina in late 2009 to photograph areas that were once the front lines of the Bosnian War. He was told by workers from NGO Landmine Survivors Initiative not to wander into rural areas without a guide, Brett became intrigued by the landscape and the sense of fear that still haunted the Bosnian people. 14 years after the conflict caution had to be taken with every step. Bosnia achieved independence, but the legacy of the war left mines and ordinance scattered not only in the rural areas but in the major cities as well. As a vast majority of the mining was undocumented or known only to foot soldiers that fought in the areas, many innocent civilians have continued to lose their lives even after the conflict.

Brett’s landscapes depict the unknown, the terror and danger that lay beneath the surface that we cannot readily see. In the western world, nature is easily packaged, conquerable and free to roam through and explore without consequence. These pieces also show the regenerative power of nature and human beings insatiable appetite to expand, explore, conquer and transform nature into civility. Ironically, it is a man-made killing machine that protects the natural setting.

Brett Van Ort was born in Washington D.C and in raised Texas. He spent several years in Los Angeles working as a cinematographer. In 2009 he completed an MA in the Photojournalism/Documentary Photography program from The London College of Communication. His work has been featured in AP26, PhotoEspana in Madrid, PDN's Photo Annual, and FORMAT festival. Brett currently lives and works in London.

LAST Fridays
Panel Discussion
Friday 25th March 2011
7-9pm

The discussion will revolve around places in nature that have a hidden and fearful element to them.  These places allow us to realize that at one point in our evolution as a species nature was inhospitable and dangerous.  Now nature resembles the pre-packaged, safe wilderness we encounter in most areas of the Western world.  We have lost the inherent fear of nature our ancestors had only a century or so ago.  When photographers go to photograph places that manifest this age-old fear, how does it represent itself in the images presented.

With Brett Van Ort, Simon Norfolk, Wendy Pye and chaired by Paul Lowe.

http://www.wendypye.co.uk/
http://www.brettvanort.com
http://simonnorfolk.com/

Mine Action Day
Panel Discussion and Film Presentation
Monday 4th April 2011
7-9pm

With Brett Van Ort,  filmmaker Lennaart van Oldenborgh, Nerina Cevra with Action on Armed Violence, Stephanie Stuart, director Handicap International UK, which will focus on the issues of landmines.

 

image Samson Young

Hong Kong Whispers
20th January -26th February 2011
Preview 19th January 2011 6.30-9pm

Thickest Choi
Vangi Fong
Livia Garcia
Annysa Ng
Raymond Wong
Samson Young

Curated by Anthony Elliott

Hong Kong Whispers is a group exhibition, which addresses the cultural and historical relationship between Hong Kong and the UK. Proposing a definition of an art exhibition analogous to a game of Chinese Whispers. The exhibition explores the miscommunications that happen in cross cultural art exhibition, and attempts to create a space in which meanings can be discussed, debated, and challenged.

For Hong Kong Whispers, Livia Garcia’s she has created portraits of residents in Leeds on the discarded bags filled with the rice, showing how the seemingly passive unconnected identities of communities in the UK and China are connected through global transactions in food production . Continuing the exploration of connected identities, Annysa Ng’s installation uses mirrors to place the viewers in an infinite reflection, whilst caught between two walls covered by silhouetted portraits of women adorned by Tudor and Ancient Chinese costume. Vangi Fong’s photographs of her interventions underneath the flyover roads of Hong Kong draws attention to artistic expressions valued and accepted by the National Gallery in comparison to blanked out expressions of street art. Samson Young’s video of himself touring the luxurious attractions of Hong Kong dressed as a Tele-tubby (significantly a British National), overlaid with Deng Xiaoping’s famous speech ‘Build Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ creates a humorous yet sinister commentary on the political situation of Hong Kong between two great powers and cultures.

Most overtly political is Thickest Choi’s project linking the communities of Hong Kong and Brixton, through common experience of the Police ‘Stop-and-Search’ policy. This practice, which sparked the Brixton Riots in 1981 on the very road where the exhibition takes place, was also implemented in Hong Kong after Leftist riots in 1967 and continues to be in place. A performance by Raymond Wong in collaboration with Oscar Oldershaw & Joe Campbell will explore personal feelings of being from Hong Kong and living in London. Collaborating with videographers, Wong breaks down the expectation usually placed upon artists not from the UK to represent their foreign culture.

During the exhibition at 198, C&G Artpartment in Hong Kong will also be having a two week exhibition mirroring the London show by showing 10 minute clips of audiences engaging with the artwork in London and asking people to share they’re responses to this online. There will also be panel discussions in both cities where artists, curators, thinkers and audiences interested in these issues will be able to discuss issues raised by the artists in their work.

Hong Kong Whispers is curated by Anthony Elliott, who developed the project from an interest in the continuing issues raised by cultural imperialism, which are being shaped and challenged by new technologies of communication and political movements. The conceptual elements of the project are derived from an anthropological dilemma of how to represent other cultures. But rather than overcome the dilemma, Elliott’s collaboration seeks not to represent culture through exhibition, but make the exhibition an active engaged process of understanding.

Gallery Opening Times

Monday-Friday 11-5pm

Panel discussion
31st January 2011
How artists living and working between Hong Kong, Britain and China can enable us to question and review understandings of these complex cross cultural relationships. With Livia Garcia, Ashley Wong, Dr Katie Hill and Dr Sarah Chaeng

Performance
Fontless in C
25th February 2011
An extension of Raymond Wong’s video work featuring a live improvised soundtrack by Maja Naga

For more information
info@198.org.uk or
anthonyelliottart@gmail.com

 

 

 

ARA: A New Face of the Old World
Sunara Begum
1st October – 20th November 2010

Sunara Begum draws her influences from the natural world, figurative painting, religious iconography, mystical philosophies and the cultures in which she was raised. Combining cinematography and storytelling, Begum’s work explores themes of identity and gender as seen in myth, divinity, both historical and contemporary. Her own personal experience is one of profound self-exploration and search for identity as she is interested in mapping connections between the human condition and the environments we inhabit. Using the body as a metaphor for landscape and the earth, her work investigates the politics of creation and transgression.

The female form represents the source of life and ultimately symbolic of power filled with mystery, passion and triumph. Begum’s desire is to delve deeper into the cause and effects of transformation of woman, marked through the various stages of her inner life. The story of Ara: A New Face of the Old World is a sacred narrative of a woman born in a timeless moment. Ara is a contemporary-ancient image of humanity and her movement is marked with its freedom. Throughout the manifestation of the world of Ara, Begum consciously becomes an active storyteller creating alternative realities and exploring the universality of woman and self as they become one. For her exhibition at 198 Begum will be presenting photographic images, short films and a series of visual dream sequences depicting the various stages in the mythology of Ara.

Begum’s work is evocative, powerful and meditative drawing us deeper into what it means to be a woman rooted in a tradition, yet an active force in 21st century culture. Being British born of Bangladeshi ancestry, Begum is perfectly positioned between East and West, placing her in a unique position to appreciate the issues surrounding cultural identity, alienation and the continual quest to find a place of belonging. Begum seeks to distill these experiences down to root truths and is unafraid to re-invent her approaches to necessitate change. Through choosing to focus her work on a deeply personal level, her desire is to inspire and enlighten her own life and the lives of others universally.

Sunara Begum graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2008 where she completed her BA (Hons) Fine Art and a Masters in Fine Art. She has collaborated with a wide range of practitioners from the visual arts, music and dance including multi-media artist, Trevor Mathison, spoken word artist HKB FiNN, classical composer Tunde Jegede and the dancer/choreographer, Bode Lawal. She has also been involved in theatre production, film and television including working as producer and cinematographer on internationally acclaimed award-winning documentary films, Our Story, Our Voice and 500 Years Later.

Workshop/ performance with Sunara Begum & Tunde Jegede
Saturday 16th October 2010 2-5pm
Exploring the key concepts that emerge in the exhibition, this workshop considers the links between sound and visuals in the 21st century using dance, music and imagery being part of a dying culture and the future of folk traditions.

198 Contemporary Arts & Learning 16/10/10 from Barby Asante on Vimeo

 

 

The Inconsistency of Everything
Harminder Singh Judge

23rd July – 11th September 2010
Preview 22nd July 2010 7-9pm

“I always keep one eye on my personal history as a British born Sikh who loves rock music and Red Dwarf whilst also being genuinely fascinated and moved by the epic stories of religious history. I would site religious symbolism, mass conversion and the rituals of cults among my many influences, as well as Madonna, Coca-Cola & Jesus.’’

Harminder Singh Judge describes himself as an artist trapped in a perpetual love triangle with religion, art and pop culture. Over the last four years Judge has developed an interdisciplinary practice obsessed with romanticised fables within religious history, exploring the enduring appeal of spirituality within our postmodern and largely secular society. His work is an intersection between Eastern religious mythologies, the British colonial system and Western contemporary culture, which are steeped in pop/kitsch aesthetics. He challenges romantic ideas of eastern culture and spirituality through performing and redefining rituals and stories to reveal and propose possible contemporary interpretations that fuse these traditions with contemporary western culture.

Symbolism, prayer and ritual are constantly reworked and redefined by different cultures and generations into new expressions often explicitly different from the original story or belief. Singh Judge’s work references these connections, the ways in which they have been interpreted, reinterpreted or how they have been completely changed so there is little trace of the connections. Cleverly he finds links and connections between the mythologies of the east and the popular culture of the west and creates imagery that refers to the performativity of these actions. The excitement of working with Judge comes from the anticipation of the final product, which may or may not resemble anything like all the previous conversations, but lies in the confidence he will produce an excellent thought provoking show.

For the Inconsistency of Everything commissioned by the New Art Exchange and 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, Judge has created new sculptural and wall-based work that locates its starting point in religious mythology merged with pop culture and marketing gimmicks.

Judge has created and shown work for Art, Lifestyle & Globalisation, Tate Modern London, Arnolfini Bristol, the European Performance Art Festival at Centre for Contemporary Arts Poland, Ikon Gallery Birmingham and the National Review of Live Art at Tramway Glasgow. Harminder Singh Judge was born in Yorkshire in 1982. He studied Fine Art in Newcastle and is currently based in Birmingham.

 

Cheryl Lane: The Retrospective

7th June -10th July 2010

A Voice to Break Through the Silence

“When I be makin things, I be makin my self.
I use all those l’le things I see around me.
Things that got no meanin, things peoples don respect.
I jest put ‘em together, I don use my mind I jest sense ‘em”

Cheryl Lane’s work revolves around an urgent need for expression. Lane describes the importance of stories told in her family of everyday life that were lessons in the politics of life in America for a person of colour. The language used in the home was different to that used in public. ‘Home speakin’ was based on the Southern American Language AAVE (African American Vernacular English) a Creole or hybrid language consisting of West African languages and southern English. Lane describes this form of Black English to be loud boisterous, boastful and heartfelt and relies on attitude to get a point across. It is also dark and mournful and important to the perception and creation of her world. I would also add this language is coloured with myth and folklore, religious and spiritual belief.

In his book the Blues People, Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka) describes a time when the African slave becomes and African American. He claims that it was only when the African slave realized that he was not returning to Africa, did he/she begin to learn the masters language and quickly adapt that language to create a new form appropriate to their new world experience thus creating a new language and new forms of creative expression.

“How I speak gives insight into how I create.”

Growing up at a time of immense change in American society for people of colour and for women must have had a profound impact on the young Lane as culture and politics are also central themes in the work in particular the politics of identity. Her political expression seems to reflect the Womanist ideals of Alice Walker who adopted the phrase the Personal is Political as a means to describe her practice of writing. Walkers need to give voice to women through her prose is something I also see in Lane’s works. I say women because although Lane is from and African American background and this is apparent in her work, she does not see this need for expression as being exclusive. Lane like Walker is very much aware that her identity is one of hybrid cultures so to adhere to one historic cultural reference point to Lane seems contrived as she identifies with many often contradictory ideas, represented as a fusion of cultures colliding in one individual.

The myth of Philomela from Ovid’s Metamorphoses has become the central allegory in much of Lane’s work. Philomela was raped by her brother-in-law; King Terus. When Philomela declares she will tell every one of his misdeeds the king brutally punishes her by cutting out her tongue and imprisoning her in a tower, rendering her void and speechless. Her silence creates a need for new language. The new language becomes her art, she stitches tapestry’s depicting the story of her misfortune. Critically Lane connects this to Julia Kristeva’s theory from The Revolution of Poetic Language, where Kristeva sought to demonstrate the function of the physical development of language, the acquisition of language becoming synonymous with subjectivity. The “self” established in language. The participation in the social is the ability to follow ‘regulations’ that are inherent in language, however language is unstable, it cannot fully suppress unconscious drives that exist in the make up of the subject therefore the unconscious affects language through the process of seepage.

You can sense this seepage in viewing Lane’s work. Images, merge with text. Use of materials to create layers of meaning materials from the domestic environment, unconventional materials, often found and reused materials merged together to make some strange and wonderful constructions. There is a constant repetition of letters words or phrases, or the name Philomela, Philomela, Philomela. Utterances, urges to speak to find a voice within the silence to find a means of expression. Magazine images are embellished and redefined by Lane’s mark making. Women are painted or drawn without mouths or eyes or they are constructed without heads or arms, essential physical qualities for intimate human expression. Lane’s work is has an intense draw to the viewer who is intrigued by a sense of beauty that is dark and melancholic yet romantic, sensual, and extremely poignant.

Cheryl Rich was born in Germaintown, Philadelphia USA on the 1st Oct 1949. She lived in New York City from 83-90 and then London from 1990. Cheryl’s creative expression began with fashion. She worked in fashion retail in all three cities including Comme Des Garcons in NY and Donna Karan in London and also creating her own collections that she sold in Portobello Market. Moving on from Fashion to finding a more personal means of expression, Cheryl completed a BA Fine Art degree at the University of East London in 2002 and her MA at City and Guilds, London in 2006, receiving an award from the arts and humanities research council to study and a distinction in her written thesis for the MA. Cheryl Lane sadly passed away on 11th January 2010. Her work is in private collections in the USA, UK and Greece.

Barby Asante, Associate Curator 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning

Future Essense Danielle Dean 198@45

14th June -28th June 2010

In Future Essence, 2009 (originally a commission for the Window Gallery at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London), Dean proposes a possible re-branding of pure, natural coconut oil - a basic foodstuff and traditional afro-beauty product:

Future Essence Pure Coconut Oil has landed from outer space, from a far-off planet: an extraordinary substance of the future. With its remarkable nutrient-rich, soothing properties the possible uses of this versatile product range from beauty and hair care, to healing and general wellbeing.

The face of Future Essence Pure Coconut Oil is the alluring model Donyale Luna, notably the first black American to appear on the cover of British Vogue who starred in films by Andy Warhol (including Donyale Luna, 1967, in which she appeared as Snow White). Luna was known to dismiss the idea of racial difference and once said that she was from Mars.

Why not sample Future Essence Pure Coconut Oil and star in your own science fiction where the future is yours..?!

By borrowing from ‘futuristic’ science fiction the artist attempts to explore contemporary ideas of race, social difference and the mass media. This investigation continues in Artist Run Space on a Newly Discovered Planet, which began as a project with auto-italia south east for No Soul For Sale, a festival of independent arts organisations at Tate Modern in May this year.

A book of annotated illustrations guides the reader through the fictional setting of an artist run space on an imaginary ‘water planet’, that provides a place for artists visiting from Earth to make and exhibit their work. This marks the beginning of a larger project where other artists will be invited to propose hypothetical artwork, exhibitions or projects for this fictitious place.

Danielle Dean was born in Alabama in 1982. She lives and works in London and Los Angeles.

 

Panopticon: Surveillance Explored
21st April – 21st May 2010
Launch 21st April-18.30-21.30

'I See' Alexandra Valy, 2008

Panopticon: Surveillance Explored is an exhibition exploring the idea of the duality of surveillance, delving into the sinister and playful elements of surveillance in contemporary society. Panopticon asks questions not only of society’s watchful eye, but you too. Living in the data age, our movements are constantly monitored from birth to death. This exhibition aims to offer an opportunity for the public to explore the love and hate relationship we have with watching people and being watched.

This exhibition brings together the work of emerging artists, who through the pieces presented, consider what it is to watch and be watched. Alexandra Valy has created an installation piece called ‘I see(v.2)’ is a comment on the inherent uncertainty of life, one where we experience our daily lives being recorded. Jayne O’Hanlon will create an installation piece focusing on the interplay between the viewer and the viewed and Jenny Barrett, Kate Williamson and Aditya Palsule are creating a photographic document of the presence of surveillance in our society.

The London Borough of Lambeth is known for its high crime rates and is unsparingly covered with CCTV cameras on every street corner, making it a key location, to peel back the layers of surveillance. Brixton is also home to the majority of CCTV in Lambeth, thus making 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning the perfect forum to raise such a debate.

198 Contemporary Arts & Learning and University Of Arts London have collaborated with students from Central Saint Martins BA (Hons) Criticism, Communication and Curation on an exhibition focusing on the nature and presence of surveillance. Through visual and conceptual artworks, the exhibition intends to link the various aspects of surveillance in the UK to the
Brixton area – one of the most closely watched towns in London.

Panopticon: Surveillance Explored has been curated by: Jiyen Chae, Jai Clarke-Binns, France Ewen and Stacey Matthews.

http://www.alexandravaly.com/

http://panopticonat198.wordpress.com/

 

Be-Longing: Travellers Stories, Traveller’s Lives.
An Exhibition of Photographs by Eva Sajovic
Exhibition 4th February – 20th March 2010

2009 witnessed a pogrom against the Roma community in Northern Ireland, and the rise of parties in European elections campaigning on anti-Roma manifestos. Traveller communities are the largest ethnic minority group in Europe numbering over 12 million people. For centuries travellers have suffered extreme levels of prejudice and rejection and for some it has been necessary to hide their identity to survive. Eva Sajovic’s exhibition Be – Longing, photographs of people from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities a small part of the necessary reaction.

Eva’s intimate photographs of traveller communities from the UK and Slovenia are mesmerising. Her sensitive portraits of individuals and family groups, in their home environments and in life affirming situations, show the current situations and concerns of her subjects. She displays her images accompanied by written accounts or recorded testimonies which give her subjects a voice, giving the viewer a feeling of their presence. You get an idea of what life is like for these people, the importance of family, their relationships and connections to one another, their strong sense of pride and feelings of loyalty to their community and cultural identity, also the very real experience of suffering prejudice and being consider outsiders in the countries they live in. Eva connects with her subjects and collaborates with them to create images that are honest. She respects and values the relationship she has with her subjects and through this acceptance we experience the very intimate relationship Eva has with them.

Eva has been working with traveller communities for the last two years her most recent project being Pavee Widen (Travellers Talking) a book of photographs and texts made in collaboration with Roma, Irish Travellers and English Gypsies in the London Borough of Southwark and STAG (Southwark Travellers Action Group). With Be-Longing Eva hopes to promote an understanding of traveler communities and counter the unspoken prejudices about such people. She takes her experiences working with these communities further by not only presenting her work but also by inviting dialogue and debate through making public some of the conversations she has been having with the people she has photographed and the people who have supported her research, through workshops, screenings and seminars during the presentation of her work at 198.

Eva Sajovic is a Slovenian photographer who lives and works in London. In 2007 she won a merit in the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum’s Photographic Awards, and a D&AD award for photography; and has exhibited her work extensively, both in the UK and abroad.

Jo Self
ILL=USION
Paintings from a Poisoned Garden

5th November – 23rd January 2010

 

Jo Self whose visionary flower paintings reveal entire universes in the fleshy convolutions of stamen and petal, has embarked on a radical new direction. Her new exhibition is nothing less than an intense compression of her life and work into the smallest museum London has ever seen, and an accompanying book. From her childhood as the daughter of one of ITN's first news cameramen, to her time painting the Dalai Lama's garden, Self's take on an extraordinary and creative life produces an artwork that is as diverting as it is original. Will Self

Jo Self’s new exhibition, ILL=USION is the sequel to her last show at the Redfern Gallery, London in 2006, 'Paintings from the Private Garden of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’ . The exhibition will include the largest and most vibrant oil paintings from His Holinesses garden including PINK TIBETAN LOTUS, ORCHID from her residency at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and more recent paintings created in her garden in Herne Hill PAINTINGS FROM A POISONED GARDEN, which has become the focus of an environmental campaign. Some of the paintings in this exhibition are of the night sky and the moon around Brixton and Herne Hill, something that has been an influence on her work and life since her father showed her images of the sky and the moon through his telescope. A limited edition loose-leaf book accompanies the exhibition of poetry written on Self’s mobile phone while working in the garden of the Dalai Lama. These simply formed and beautiful poems work within the limits of the amount of words one is able to send in a single text message, and tell the story of Self’s life as an artist, her thoughts on illusion, and her concerns about the environment. The poems draw a path from the Dalai Lama’s garden back to her childhood watching the TV news that her father was filming, the inspiration of space travel and the poisoned garden her new paintings inhabit. The book is the exhibition in a smaller more delicate form.

198 Contemporary Arts and Learning is delighted to present this exhibition by a pre-eminent local artist and long time friend of 198. Self has lived in the area for over 28 years and her choice to show her work locally shows her affection for her local area, our shared commitment to giving local audiences an experience of high quality contemporary art and a strong ethos of participation and community.

Jo Self’s limited edition hand made book ILLUSION will be available to buy from the gallery during the exhibition each individually made book is a miniature exhibition. Books cost £50 each

Suki Chan
14th September – 19th October 2009
www.freetoair.org.uk

Chan's work weaves together a series of evocative video portraits highlighting people’s different responses to the hubbub of London life. Groups of skaters, unimpeded by traffic, move freely through the twilight city, tracing their own intuitive map of the metropolis. Nigerian security guards gatekeeping a deserted high-rise office block compare the ‘freedom’ of London with their rhythms and aspirations of their former life. While city commuters embody the mundane, monotonous regularity of our everyday urban existence.

Events

A series of events accompanying Suki Chan’s exhibition were held at 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning, with contributions from Free to Air development artists Eileen Perrier and Grace Schwindt.

 

Deepa Moodgal
An introduction to Meditation

Wednesday 23 September, 7–9pm

"Meditation is a continuous flow of perception or thought like flow of water in a river." — Hatha Yoga Pradapika.

Picking up from Suki Chan’s studies of meditation in Sleep Walk, Sleep Talk, this event presents an introduction to the practice by Deepa Moodgal, the founder of Lambeth-based organisation DeepaSpirit which promotes meditation as a significant part of yoga practice and everyday grounding. Please bring a cushion or a blanket to sit on.

www.deepaspirit.com

Eileen Perrier
Send and Receive
(An Open Dialogue)
Saturday 26 September, 12–4pm

Based upon her latest artistic research, Eileen Perrier invites you to join an open dialogue event to share experiences of sending and receiving goods between countries of origin and countries of residence. Whether you are a sender, a receiver or a second-generation observer, Eileen is interested in hearing your recollections of these personal exchanges of correspondence and possessions. Please note that this event will be filmed and will form part of the research and development towards Eileen Perrier’s project.

www.eileenperrier.com

Grace Schwindt
Only a Free Individual can Create a Free Society
(Open Dialogue/Performance)
Thursday 1 October, 6.30–9pm

Revisiting discussions she witnessed as a child surrounded by radical leftwing adults, Schwindt is interested in exploring freedom as a philosophical notion. The questions 'is it possible to live a truly free life' and 'who has the right to claim it' will be discussed in a collaborative performance with artist Klaas Hoek and will include screenings of Schwindt's work in progress.

www.graceschwindt.net

Free to Air is a Film and Video Umbrella project for more information on FVU projects visit www.fvu.co.uk

 

What Is crime?
6th July – 21st August 2009

An exhibition of Photography that asks the question ‘What is crime?’

‘Too often the media focuses on the harms and crimes of those who have relatively little power in society. This exhibition will broaden our view of who is affected by the financial crisis, environmental harms and different forms of violence.' Ken Loach
Violent events caused by businesses and the state; hidden violence against women, children and the elderly; the way in which poverty hurts, injures, and kills; the impact of environmental pollution, the images in this exhibition reflect concerns that rarely attract the same level of political and public concern as `conventional' crime.

Organised by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies in collaboration with 198, and supported by The Wates Foundation and The Independent, this exhibition presents entries to the What is crime? competition. Rather than conventional law and order images of police, prison and judges, What Is crime? invited entries which challenged conventional thinking about harm, injustice and crime. Divided into three categories, violence, finance and environment the competition inspired school children, professional photographers and other members of the public, both in the UK and internationally, to interpret the competition themes. The judging panel was made up of individuals able to bring a range of expertise from the world of arts and academia, including photographers, criminologists and curators such as award winning film maker Ken Loach, Mark Haworth-Booth, Tom Hunter and Tamsin O Hanlon.

The What is crime? exhibition is part of a broader project by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, that has produced original research from leading academics on questions as broad as ‘safety crimes’ in the workplace, the impact of environmental regulation on human health and also the effect of the current recession on homicide, suicide and heart attack rates across Europe. The winning entries include images depicting the construction of Israel/Palestinian wall, a polluted river in India, children working in an illegal tannery, images of environmental damage, and the painful suffering of the elderly.

Images Mays Legs, Davy Jones, Sea at Foxhall, Catherine Lindsey Davies, In Need of Refreshment, Anna Chrystal Stephens, Dark Waters, Alex Masi, The Palestinian Wall, Reyaz Limalia.

Roma Tearne

A Moment in Time That Mattered to Someone

14th May – 20th June 2009

“I once found a photograph on a seat in the underground. It was black-and-white and creased as if it had been kept in a wallet for years. Later I noticed someone had drawn all over it. This set me thinking about the ways in which the photographic image can be altered. A photograph is taken with a view of eternity in mind. Otherwise why take it? It is meant as an aid to memory, for memory as we know, fails. Its loss is something we all fear and the photograph stands between that loss and our fear.”

The paintings in the series 'A Moment In Time’ evoke anxiety. In one of them a boy is in flight; he crosses a desert coloured by panic. In another, giant trees are submerged by the sea or dominate a hillside. Collages from this same series are the detritus of letter writing. In these, anxiety is represented by images of dogs or monkeys. Yellowed endpapers, the fragmentary marks of handwriting, stamps and postmarks are all signs of absence. A line of glass jars in another room display photographic images half-submerged in water. The distortion created by the refraction of the water, which becomes further deformed as the viewer moves past, gives the appearance of disturbed memories. Roma Tearne’s new body of work explores the erasure of memory that occurred in her personal life and this also provides the material for both her novel Brixton Beach and her visual work.

Tearne is a Sri Lankan-born artist and writer living and working in Britain. She came her with her parents at the age of ten. Training as a painter, she completed her MA at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford. For nearly twenty-five years her work as painter, installation artist, and filmmaker has dealt with the traces of history and memory within public and private spaces. Roma is currently a Creative Writing Fellow at Brookes University, Oxford. This exhibition marks her return to 198 and coincides with the publication of her third novel, Brixton Beach. Signed copies of the book (published in June by Harper Collins), will be available at the gallery from 29th May 2009.

Listen to Roma Tearne on BBC Radio 4 Womans Hour 28th May 2009

[re]locate

A Sonic Installation by Tahera Aziz

30th April – 2nd May 2009

‘never to take the tedious task
of waiting for a bus for granted.’

(What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us by Benjamin Zephaniah)

[re]locate is a sonic installation revisiting an ordinarily public ‘place’ that retains the traces of a deeply significant event; it is concerned with the processes involved in struggling to preserve the memory of that event whilst offering new insights. The impetus for the work flows from the tragic events surrounding the racially motivated murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence near a bus stop in south London in 1993, and the deep impact this has had publicly particularly following the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry into the police handling of the murder investigation, and its subsequent lack of resolution.
Taking the notion of the daily routine of waiting at the bus stop as its starting point, [re]locate explores the disruption of the everyday, to foreground the event once again, highlighting detailed elements that have particular resonance. On entering the space the audience members assume the role of ‘pedestrians’ or ‘passers-by’, guiding the unfolding of the sonic events. Depending on their movements within the installation, they unravel the multi-layered elements, recounted from different perspectives or time frames of significance to the case. Essentially, the audience rediscover fragments that bear witness to the event that has long since past, but still demands closure.
Tahera Aziz has had a longstanding creative and political interest in identity, migration and racism. She has produced photo-based and installation work that explores how wider socio-political issues or events can impact on the individual to shape their experiences, and their sense of self and belonging. Motivated by a desire to explore the potential of sound to re-examine events associated with the Stephen Lawrence case, Aziz has developed [re]locate with funding from the Arts Council of England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, in partnership with London South Bank University and PVA MediaLab. The preview celebrates the creative outcomes of the research and marks a transition of the work into a form for public viewing and response. [re]locate will continue to evolve in each of its new locations and spaces, with audience responses being integral to the process.

 

Aya Haidar

Crewel Stories

6th March – 18th April 2009

During the 2006 bombing of Lebanon a friend of artist Aya Haidar sent her daily diary entries, recounting the horror and devastation happening around her, she shared her views, feelings, her fears and her desire to go home. Aya took one of these diary entries and carefully embroidered it onto a pillow in black thread, adding her own thoughts and feelings over the top in red.

On first viewing of Aya Haidar’s work, you are struck by the beauty of the meticulously crafted handmade objects you are being presented with. On closer inspection you realise that underneath the beauty lies stories of loss, displacement and migration, stories of day-to-day life and suffering. These stories are personal and intimate, exploring her identity as a woman of Lebanese origin, her family ties and the understanding of sitting between two cultures.

Using recycled materials, fabric, paper, fibre and making these discarded materials useful again, Aya reworks these materials, adding layers of meaning to the new objects she makes. This also explores the idea of necessity versus commodity and when people are put into a position of having to move, what is it that you take and what is it that you leave behind. Growing up Aya recalls knitting with her grandmother as she recounted stories of her life in Lebanon, reminding you of the intergenerational narrative within the work, the passing of the skill and memory from one generation to another. These new hand made objects provide comfort and connection with the past through the reuse of material and the recollection of the stories embroidered on them, making that which might have been passed on aurally into something physical.

Aya Haidar graduated from Slade School of Art in 2008. She has exhibited her work in the UK and abroad and has work in the Ryerson and Joan Flasch artist’s book collection at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. She lives and works in London and is currently doing an MSc in Non Government Organisations and Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

People, Signs and Resistance

12 December – 21 February 2009

Inspired by unique film shot between the 1960's and 1980's by Clovis Salmon, People, Signs and Resistance presents his unseen films alongside commissioned works by artists Nada Prlja, George Amposah, Tim Blake and George Butler in a multi-faceted exhibition that engages people in the recent heritage of Brixton.
 
Known locally as "Sam The Wheels" due to the cycle repair service he operates from his home in Railton Road the "Front Line" of Brixton, Salmon arrived in London from Jamaica in 1954. As an amateur filmmaker he began filming church services and local street scenes, including the aftermath of the 1981 Brixton Riots. He also produced a film that follows the story of 'Jesus Saves', a Pentecostal Church demolished to make way for the infamous ‘Barrier Block’ on Coldharbour Lane.

Salmon’s film footage is shown alongside the work of artists and local participants developed throughout 2008. Filmmaker George Amposah worked with young people to create a series of films that investigate the SUS laws, knife crime, the Windrush generation and Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech.

George Butler has produced an interactive video, which develops questions around the themes of ideology, identity and belonging. Filmed interviews with Anarchists, Activists, Rastafarians and Black Panthers all connected in some way with Railton Road have been compiled into a non-linear narrative using Korsakow Software, creating a different experience for every viewer.

Nada Prlja’s project “Jesus Dies for our Sins” explores the recent redevelopment of religious spaces in Brixton and tracks down their alternative use. Prlja's installation displayed in the gallery front window is a direct message that is intended to act as a warning to gallery visitors, as well as everyday passers-by, about the careless redefinition and redevelopment of Brixton. Tim Blake’s film and photographic work, explores the influences of different cultures on the idea of British-ness as Britain has changed from an imperialist project to a multicultural one.

In essence the exhibition provides a document of the unique spirit and contribution of Brixton to the British landscape.

For more information about this project visit www.samthewheels.co.uk