Posts Tagged ‘2024’

Abbas Zahedi

Inspired by Sarat Maharaj’s seminal essay “Xeno-Epistemics,” which introduces the idea of art knowledge as “inventing other ways of thinking-knowing” and “ways of knowing otherness,” Zahedi’s fellowship project embarks on an exploration of how art can reimagine its own boundaries. This initiative moves beyond conventional definitions of “Art” and “Research,” seeking instead to expand the material and conceptual foundations of artistic practice. By engaging with dialogues, embodiment, and interconnected systems, the project invites a reconsideration of how art can respond to the complex ecological challenges of our time. 

Central to Zahedi’s project is the transformation of the gallery into a dynamic space that functions as an emotional utility, a site where ecological grief can be processed and collectively experienced; through the interplay between bodies and environments. Drawing from the aesthetics of greenhouses and distilleries, the installation will incorporate a network of custom elements, blending natural and technological components to create an immersive sonic-led experience. Through this evolving landscape, Zahedi invites us to consider new forms of engagement and reflection, where the sensory and the conceptual merge, evoking a dialogue on the fragility of our planet.

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Abbas Zahedi (b. 1984, London, UK), studied medicine at University College London, before completing his MA at Central Saint Martins in 2019. Zahedi blends contemporary philosophy, poetics, and social dynamics with performative and new-media modes.

Selected exhibitions include Holding a Heart in Artifice, Nottingham Contemporary (2023); Metatopia 10013, Anonymous Gallery, New York (2022); The London Open 2022, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022); Postwar Modern, Barbican, London (2022); Testament, Goldsmiths CCA, London (2022); Temporary Compositions, Gallery 31 Somerset House, London (2021); Yarmonics 2021, Great Yarmoth, UK (2021); D.E.VALUATION, Mécènes du Sud, Montpellier (2021); 11 & 1, Belmacz, London (2021); Governmental Fires, FUTURA, Prague (2021); In Hindsight…, Bladr, Copenhagen (2020); Ouranophobia SW3, Chelsea Sorting Office, London (2020); How To Make A How From A Why?, Fire Station, South London Gallery, London (2020); Degree Show, Central Saint Martins, London (2019); The Age of New Babylon, Lethaby Gallery, London (2018); Diaspora Pavilion, (ICF), Wolverhampton Art Gallery (2018); appetite, Apiary Studios, London (2018); Diaspora Pavilion, (ICF), Palazzo Pisani a Santa Marina, Venice (2017); rb&hArts, Royal Brompton Hospital, London (2008).

Selected interventions, projects and performances include Best Before End, Bold Tendencies, London (2023); Sonic Signals, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2023); Frieze Artist Award commission, London, (2022); Sonic Support Group, with Neurofringe (2020 – ongoing); Radio Amnion, Technical University of Munich (2021); Becontree Forever, Create London (2021); Brick Lane Foundation, Whitechapel Gallery (2021); A Case of Med(dling)tation, Performance Exchange at Belmacz (2021); To The Sour Sowers, The Mosaic Rooms, London (2021); The Urgency of The Arts Assembly, Royal College of Art (2021); Soul Refresher, Brent Biennial, London Borough of Culture (2020); Long Table: Lament, South London Gallery (2020); AMRA, Spike Island, Bristol (2019); Rose & STEMM, Guest Projects, London (2019); Outset Grant Ceremony, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2019); The Boulevard, Tate Britain, London (2018); Studio Jum’ah, Tate Exchange, London (2018); #FakeBooze, Diaspora Pavilion, Venice (2017).

Zahedi has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Frieze Artist Award (2022); the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists (2021); the Serpentine Galleries’ Support Structures for Support Structures (2021); Artangel, Thinking Time (2020); Jerwood Arts Bursary (2019); Aziz Foundation Academic Scholarship (2018); and Khadijah Saye Memorial Fund Scholarship (2017).

Zahedi is an associate lecturer at the Royal College of Art (London), as well as teaching at universities across the UK and abroad.

Sophie Huckfield

Sophie Huckfield’s fellowship will explore the legacy and potential future applications of Nobel Prize nominated Lucas Plan (1976), which aimed to repurpose engineers’ and workers’ technical skills for “socially useful production” but was never realised. In order to explore the legacy, methodologies and future applications of the Lucas Plan, the fellowship will work towards the co-creation of a ‘post-rational’ alternative world(s) building project, to collectively envision an alternative timeline of pasts and presents in which the Lucas Plan had been put in practice and envisioning that development if it had moved towards intersectional queer, feminist and ecological forms of repurposing skills and knowledge. The aim of this approach is to explore how our skills, knowledge and technological development can become more open, intersectional and democratic, alongside developing methodologies for how to collectively repurpose or reorient a range of infrastructures, tools and skills for equitable presents and futures, which takes a non-hierarchical and bottom up approach.

The action-based research will centre around connecting and collaborating with various publics at Kingston and beyond, with the aim to co-create new proposals inspired by the Lucas Plan’s 150 designs. The project will envision new intersectional social and environmental repurposing methodologies, expand upon what ‘socially useful’, and repurpose a range of infrastructures, perspectives and experiences.

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Sophie Huckfield is a research-based artist, designer and writer. Their practice is collaborative, political and interdisciplinary, and developed through intersectional feminist and queer practices, particularly in relation to working class lives. Their work draws on archival and research materials and it is concerned with reframing overlooked histories, connected with labour, technology, craft, class, and (de)industrialisation. 

Recent projects include Lady Ludd, a feminist and queer reframing of the Luddite Movement as part of the Near Now Fellowship at Broadway in Nottingham; and OUTWORK, a collaborative project and book on the history of women Printworkers in West Bromwich with arts organisation Multistory and funded by Historic England. Previously they have exhibited, performed and screened at The Barbican, The Design Museum, Dutch Design Week, London Design Festival, Fashion Space Gallery, Two Queens, Vivid Projects, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Modern Clay, Eastside Projects amongst others, alongside commissioned projects for British Art Show 9 Partner Schools programme with Arts Connect and Wolverhampton Museum and Art Gallery.

Under Construction

Launched for London Design Festival 2024

Warning
Allergen Notice –This exhibition contains barley straw

Under Construction is an evolving collaborative architecture project, under construction at the Stanley Picker Gallery throughout September – December 2024. The exhibition surveys more than a decade of ambitious live-build projects guided by architect Takeshi Hayatsu, working with Kingston University Architecture and Landscape students and a growing cohort of participants and community partners (including The Community Brain, Citizen Zoo, 121 Collective and more). Since 2011, these projects have provided imaginative and highly resourceful responses to their chosen locations in collaboration with diverse communities around Kingston, Surbiton, Tolworth and beyond.

Under Construction presents a selection of these past projects through tactile materials, highlighting different craft techniques, scale models, and re-constructed structures built for the exhibition by 121 Collective, itself formed of alumni of Hayatsu. The women’s film collective w.in.c has created a short documentary focussing on Hayatsu’s approach to teaching through making, his community centred ethos, and the haptic methodologies of the various builds, whilst the accumulative publication provides a summary of each project to date.

Throughout the exhibition an entirely new live build will take place at the Stanley Picker Gallery, developed with the 2024-25 cohort of Unit 5 MArch students from the Department of Architecture and Landscape at Kingston School of Art, Kingston University. This will include a temporary rammed earth Shrine outside the entrance and a Sauna on the Gallery’s riverside terrace.

Past projects such as the Bridge (2011-12), a replica of 17th century Japanese wooden Kintaikyo bridge or Woodland Chapel (2013-14), a structure made for a local St John’s Primary School both made entirely from donated and recycled materials are exemplary of the economy of means and the ethos of DIY builds. Temple (2014-15) and Seminar House Pavilion (2015-16) were created for the garden of Dorich House Museum, each championing special techniques such as elaborate carpentry or yakisugi, a Japanese method for scorching timber. The following year, the Barbican Tea House (2016-17) was a burnt timber cladded tea house specially commissioned for the exhibition ‘The Japanese House: Architecture and Life After 1945’ at the Barbican Centre London, as a collaboration between architect Terunobu Fujimori, Takeshi Hayatsu and architecture and product design students from Kingston University.

SHEDx was a community engagement programme initiated by The Community Brain. As part of the project, The Heritage Shed (2017-18) housed a display of allotment culture. Like many other builds, this shed travelled to various contexts including the V&A, RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival and the Garden Museum. Hayatsu’s idea of democratising crafts have continued to unfold through recent collaborations such as the Green Shed (2018-19) and Hide (2019-21), which involved schoolchildren decorating individual wooden panels with locally sourced clay paint, as well as public engagement elements of the Surbiton Yatai (2017-18) and the Lantern (2023) launched with public processions.

A series of workshops and events encourage visitors to learn about the exhibition and get involved in the live build. See all public event at the bottom of this page.

Biographies & Further Information:

Takeshi Hayatsu is a Japanese architect based in London. He studied architecture at Musashino Art University, Tokyo and Architectural Association, London. He worked for David Chipperfield Architects, Haworth Tompkins and 6a architects before establishing Hayatsu Architects in 2017. Alongside his practice, he teaches a MArch unit at Kingston School of Art. He also conducts annual summer school in Japan with Grizedale Arts. He is a member of the Design Review Panel at Harrow Council.

Department of Architecture and Landscape, Kingston University. Architecture and Landscape are richly interconnected. The large workshops and the ethos of thinking through making speak of the inherent dynamic of how we see knowledge generated in the productive tension between tectonics and representation. This is a fundamental part of how the department seeks to enable its students through a direct and immediate connection with how things are made, and the nature of the spaces that result.

121 Collective are architectural designers and makers with a special appreciation for craft, community and sustainability. After being introduced to the local community interest company The Community Brain during their time as architecture students at Kingston School of Art, they have continued to work closely together on a range of community-led projects. 121 are based at Tolworth Main Allotments at the Farm of Futures, creating a sustainable community hub, which promotes the growth of local ideas, food, cross-generational skill sharing, circular economy and upcycling.

w.in.c (Women’s Independent Collective) films, was founded in 2008 by Abbe Leigh Fletcher, Petra Reynolds, Sabela Pernas Soto and Claudia Vásquez Ramírez. They are a growing network of filmmakers from the MA Filmmaking course at Kingston School of Art. They aim to tackle gender inequality through film and challenge established hierarchical modes of production by working collectively across continents.

Events:

Weekly from 21 September 11am-12.30pm Onsite
Saturday Art Club (ages 7-11) and monthly (ages 14-18)
Book you FREE workshop spot here

Friday 27 September, 1-5pm Offsite
Community Heritage Harvest Day, organised by Ariadne’s Thread
Offsite at Kingston Museum’s Garden (KT1 2PS)
FREE, drop in any time

Wednesday, 2 October, 5-7pm Onsite
Communities Forum with Dorich House Museum &
Stanley Picker Gallery

Saturday 12 October 10am-1pm Onsite
SEND Quiet Open & Creative Activities.
FREE, drop in any time

Wednesday 16 October 6-8pm Onsite & Kingston School of Art
Tour of the exhibition ‘Under Construction’ at Stanley Picker Gallery (6-6.30pm).
Followed by Takeshi Hayatsu’s Talk at the Atrium of the Architecture & Landscape Department KSA(6.30-8pm).
FREE

Tuesday, fortnightly from 29 October 12.30-2pm Onsite
Community Kantha & Flax Workshops, organised by Ariadne’s Thread
FREE, drop in any time

Wednesday 30 October 1-2pm Onsite
Talk: Simon Jones from Jones Neville discusses joinery, jigs and templates
FREE

Thursday 31 October 10am-11am Onsite
SEND Relaxed Open & Creative Activities.
Book your FREE ticket here & drop in any time

Thursday 31 October 11am-1pm Onsite
Family Fun: Halloween-themed Creative Activities
Book your FREE ticket here & drop in any time

Thursday 31 October 1-2pm Onsite
Join Curator Bori Borbala Soós Onsite for a Lunchtime Curator’s Tour of the Exhibition.
Book your FREE ticket here

Wednesday 6 November 1-2pm Onsite
Talk: David Leviatin from London Timber Frame on carpentry and repair.
FREE

Wednesday 13 November 1-2pm Onsite
Talk: Diana Ibanez Lopez from MA Cities Central Saint Martins on social practice.
FREE

Thursday 28 November 1-2pm Online
Join Curator Bori Borbala Soós Online for a Lunchtime Curator’s Tour of the Exhibition.
Book your FREE ticket here

Wednesday 4 December 5-7pm Onsite
Come and have a drink with us to celebrate our new Sauna and rammed earth Shrine at the Gallery!
FREE, drop in any time

Thomas Pausz

Haunted Ecologies

Onsite: 25 April – 13 July 2024
Launch Event: Wednesday 24 April 6 – 8pm | All Welcome

Stanley Picker Fellow Thomas Pausz’ solo show Haunted Ecologies intersects the research fields of media, ecology and ‘hauntology’ – the understanding that our perception of contemporary environment and culture is always haunted by spectres of the past and by hopes and visions of the future – to propose an immersive installation echoing the transformations of local ecosystems.

The Stanley Picker Gallery is situated on an island along the Hogsmill River, a tributary of the Thames whose riverbank flora is immortalised in John Everett Millais’ famous painting of Ophelia. This exhibition presents a collection of works inspired by the ecology of the surrounding river. The installation echoes the transformations of the river over time and traces how, from Eadweard Muybridge’s landscape photography to contemporary digital image making techniques, the media constellations we design are evolving with and changing our perception of the ecosystem.

As a chalk stream, the Hogsmill River has an increasingly endangered ecology due to excessive extraction of water and increasing sewer discharge. This influx of sewage water on the one hand radically raises the nutrient level of the river, benefitting certain plants and hence causing changes in biodiversity, on the other it also introduces a large variety of harmful polluting substances.

Eadweard Muybridge (Kingston Upon Thames 1830 – 1904) became world renowned for his innovative studies of animals in motion, but was also an accomplished landscape photographer. In her book River of Shadows Rebecca Solnit1 details how Muybridge often superimposed separate images of clouds onto his photographs, creating composite images to achieve more dramatic visual effects. The original photograph at the entrance of the gallery was taken in Yosemite on Muybridge’s travels through America c. 1872. This work forms part of the Royal Borough of Kingston’s Muybridge Collection now archived at Kingston University’s Town House Library.

Darkroom is a video projectionwith 4.1 sound that links to Pausz’ research on 19th century spirit photography, and how the techniques developed to manufacture ‘ghost’ images were later used to modify landscapes. William H. Mumler was the first to introduce this genre as he became known for capturing iconic translucent ‘spirits’ which appeared next to portraits of living subjects. Mumler was later taken to court and prosecuted for fraud, and while never convicted, he was publicly shamed and eventually threw all of his photographic materials into the Hudson River2. During his early Fellowship experiments, Pausz took photos of the Hogsmill River and immediately developed them in the darkroom, going back and forth between the two. His film, shot with a so-called phantom high-speed camera, documents the process of developing the images, and is accompanied by a composition with sounds recorded by Pausz near Tolworth using hydrophones to capture sewers discharging into the Hogsmill. The soundscape was composed by the artist in collaboration with Tom Manoury to create the immersive environment.

Pausz has been researching techniques to filter and to revitalise water, especially in relation to environmentalist, philosopher and inventor Viktor Schauberger, who was specifically interested in the flow of water and the potential energies harvested from it; and Dr Masaru Emoto, whose research centred around the memory and molecular structures of water. Building on their ideas, Schauberger’s Cabinet consists of a neon light of a whirlpool, a lightbox with elaborate 3D printed funnels that can help animate and energise water, as well as smaller lightboxes with 3D printed reliefs capturing the unique patterns droplets form as they hit the surface of water.

In the second gallery, Sources features four videos, each taken of a specific site where sewage water enters the Hogsmill River. The footage documents the plant life, insects and suburban fabric of the ecology of the sites, and was shot using various methods, including a new rendering technique for 3D scanning. The accompanying sound, also composed of recordings from the sites, feels harsh with frequent interruptions and translates the experience of the sudden changes and disturbances in the river.

1) Rebecca Solnit: River of Shadows. Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West. Bloomsbury, UK, 2003.
2) Tony Oursler: Notes on Mysticism and Visual Transects. In: Séance. Ed. by Shannon Taggart, Atelier Éditions, Los Angeles, 2022.

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Public Events

Artist Talk & Guided Tour | All Welcome
Main Lecture Theatre, Kingston School of Art
Thursday 25 April 2 – 4pm 
Meet our Fellow Thomas Pausz and learn more about his practice, followed by a guided visit to his solo exhibition at Stanley Picker Gallery. 

Curator’s Tour | All Welcome
Thursday June 27 12.30 – 1.30pm
As part of the London Rivers Week, Stanley Picker Gallery Curator Borbála Soós will lead a free lunchtime tour in the exhibition. Book your free ticket HERE.

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Thomas Pausz is an artist and designer born in Paris and based in Reykjavík. Pausz holds an MA from the Royal College of Arts (UK) and a BA in Philosophy from Paris X University (France). Pausz´ fictional ecosystems take various forms to explore unforeseen interactions between humans, non-human life forms, and media. His worldbuilding projects are informed by field research in specific environments, and critical dialogues with researchers in the fields of biology, climate science, and bioethics. Pausz puts a particular emphasis on the design of exotic technologies as a medium to redefine interspecies relations. Can VR for pollinators, software to read seashells, or ´spectral´ wildlife photography refocuses the human gaze and offer poetic spaces, where biological and technological are renegotiated? Recent projects include Hide & Seek at Listval Gallery, Reykjavík; Interspecies Futures at Centre for Book Arts, New York; Nature in Transition, Shifting Identities at The Nordic House, Iceland; The Wildflower at Hafnarborg Museum, Iceland; The Swamp Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale; Species Without Spaces at Atelier Luma & Istanbul Design Biennale; Food: Bigger than the Plate at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London UK and Out of the Sea at Passerelle Contemporary Art Centre Brest, France. Previously he was a fellow of the Academy Schloss Solitude (DE), artist in residence at the Politics of Food programme at the Delfina Foundation (UK), and member of the interdisciplinary Swamp School (LT).

Thomas Pausz was appointed a Stanley Picker Fellow in Art and Design in 2022. The Open Call for Applicants to the Stanley Picker Fellowships in Art & Design 2024 opens in May with a deadline of 1 July.

Larry Achiampong

Onsite: 25 January – 28 March 2024

Caution: Contains flashing lights and themes of a sensitive nature including depression, anxiety, suicide and racism. Please talk to a member of staff if you have any questions.

Stanley Picker Fellow Larry Achiampong’s show centres around two moving image works, processing the imprints of depression, inherited trauma, digital anxiety and Black Masculinity. The films delicately unfurl the tensions of dislocation, lost kin and grief, while placing the visitors in an environment filled with sculptural elements, Ashante stool, games and karate mats, reflecting on the Okinawan karate’s ‘hard-soft style’.

A Letter (Side B) 20 mins (2023) looks at the affective impact of history, immigration and geographical separation on two brothers living in Britain and Ghana. Through the nuanced uses of current and older technologies, visuals, sound and recollections of lived experiences and conversations, the film points to the wider social and political consequences of institutional structures and behaviours that threaten the lives of migrants and refugee families. The piece collapses time, exploring how the past interrupts and impacts in the present and incorporates recent footage filmed by Achiampong in Ghana as well as archival footage from The Museum of African Art: The Veda and Dr Zdravko Pečar Collection in Belgrade, Serbia. Speaking from a deeply personal perspective, the film utilises a ‘hacked’ Game Boy Camera, which Achiampong modified to enable the capture of moving image via HDMI. Through the marriage of storytelling and the use of retro technology, the exploration of time travel and the concept of ‘Sanko-time’ becomes possible. Coined by Achiampong in 2017, the term relates to the Ghanaian Adinkra symbol and indigenous Akan term ‘Sankofa’, meaning to ‘go back and retrieve’. The stools, fabricated in the workshops of Kingston School of Arts to Achiampong’s design, are modelled on the typology of Ashante furniture from Ghana and include Adinkra engravings. You are invited to play the Oware board game in the exhibition, please speak to a member of staff to learn the rules and collect a set of marbles.

A Pledge 20 mins (2024) is a new work that explores the interconnected states of generational trauma, mental and physical health and communal agency. The film begins with the story of a driver and his strained relationship with his father. Depicted through a third-person monologue (voiced by Larry’s son, Sinai Lee Achiampong-Rose), the segment addresses issues of abandonment, inherited trauma and seclusion, whilst holding the rejuvenated promise of connection through the act of driving which the motorist and his father share. Repurposed older technologies, in particular Game Boy Camera moving image presents the story like a driving-based videogame. Shot in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, the second part of the film depicts a father and son engaging in the practise of Gōjū-Ryū Karate. ‘Gōjū-Ryū’ (剛柔流) is a Japanese term meaning ‘hard-soft style’ used in traditional Okinawan karate to describe the combination of hard and soft techniques.

Games in the Exhibition: You are welcome to use the gaming corner at the Gallery entrance, including video games The Legend of Zelda – Majora’s Mask; Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and the Oware board games inside the exhibition. Please speak to a member of staff to learn the Oware game rules and collect a set of marbles to play.

Associated Events | All Welcome
Artist Talk: Thursday 25 January 2-4pm
Main Lecture Theatre, Kingston School of Art, Grange Road

Film Screening: Wednesday 13 March 6-8pm
Town House Courtyard, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, KT1 2EQ
Q&A with Larry Achiampong followed by a screening of his epic film Wayfinder
BOOK YOUR FREE TICKET HERE


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Bio: Larry Achiampong (b. 1984, UK, British Ghanaian) is an artist, filmmaker and musician. He completed a BA in Mixed Media Fine Art at University of Westminster in 2005 and an MA in Sculpture at Slade School of Fine Art in 2008. Achiampong was awarded the Stanley Picker Fellowship in Art and Design at Kingston University (2020), was shortlisted for the Jarman Award (2018/2021) and received the Paul Hamlyn Award (2019). Recent major projects include Genetic Automata (with David Blandy) at the Wellcome Collection, London (2023-24); Wayfinder at Turner Contemporary Margate, MK Gallery Milton Keynes and BALTIC, Gateshead (2022-2023); Liverpool Biennial (2021); Relic Traveller: Where You and I Come From, We Know That We Are Not Here Forever, Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal (2021); When the Sky Falls, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (2020); Pan African Flag For The Relic Travellers Alliance & Relic Traveller, Phase 1, 019, Ghent (2019); Dividednation, Primary, Nottingham (2019).

Credits: ‘A Letter (Side B)’ (2023), ‘A Pledge’ (2024) and ‘A Funeral’ (forthcoming) form part of the series ‘Ghost_Data_’ co-commissioned by The Mosaic Rooms, Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University and Heart of Glass.

Special thanks to: David Falkner, Faith McKie, Borbála Soós, Natalie Kay, Tat Whalley, Aylish Browning, Rebecca Moss and the whole team at Stanley Picker Gallery; Chrissoula Spiropoulou, Dave Hallett, Giuseppe Valletta (Kingston School of Art Moving Image Studios); Théo Welch-King, Camila Colussi (Kingston School of Art workshops);Mark Wayman, Megan Visser and Charles Stanton-Jones (ADi AV Solutions); Copperfield Gallery, London; Marie and Indran Tanabalan (Kaizen Ryu Karate Do Seiwakai East London); Hayleigh-Joy Rose; Sinai Lee Achiampong-Rose; Zael Grace Achiampong-Rose; Louise Searle; Reece Straw; Ian Woods; Veronica Grace Adjei, William Anderson; Laura Achiampong; Simeon Davis; Emily Gee; Angelina Radaković; Rachel Jarvis; Benjamin Cook (Lux Moving Image); Coli Burch (Verve Picture); Nefertiti Oboshie Schandorf.