NOVEMBER 2023

“Boliver confronts the absurdity of society's narrow beauty standards and the consequent marginalization of aging women. The works offer an empowering message to women, urging them to embrace their sexuality and bodies unapologetically.”

Launch Event:
RSVP Here
6-9 pm | Friday | 10th of November, 2023. 
During the launch event the exhibition will be activated
by a live performance (rsvp essential) from:
Rocío Boliver and her collaborators Karolina Bazydlo and Bartlomiej Gudejko.

Exhibition Opening Hours:
12-5pm, Thursday to Sunday - 10th to 26th of November 2023

Curatorial Interventions:
Rocío Boliver: an intimate, physical workshop
12-6pm, Saturday the 18th of November at VSSL Studio
More information (including on how to apply) here

FRUTAS MADURAS: Rocío Boliver (collaborating with Bartlomiej Gudejko & Karolina Bazydlo) installation photography by Marco Berardi.

FRUTAS MADURAS: Rocío Boliver (collaborating with Bartlomiej Gudejko & Karolina Bazydlo) installation photography by Marco Berardi.

Boliver's collaboration with photographer Karolina Bazydlo and collaborator Bartlomiej Gudejko (Rocio’s lover at the time) for the FACET program is a bold challenge to the invisibility of the aging female form and female sexuality. The photographic series of twelve images centers the aging female body within the realm of sexual pleasure, desire, and erotic play. The artist has reimagined the conventional 'pin up' calendar idea and created exquisite portrayals of womanly autonomy and female sexuality.

Boliver's collaboration with photographer Karolina Bazydlo and collaborator Bartlomiej Gudejko (Rocio’s lover at the time) for the FACET program is a bold challenge to the invisibility of the aging female form and female sexuality. The photographic series of twelve images centers the aging female body within the realm of sexual pleasure, desire, and erotic play. The artist has reimagined the conventional 'pin up' calendar idea and created exquisite portrayals of womanly autonomy and female sexuality.

Through these images, Boliver confronts the absurdity of society's narrow beauty standards and the consequent marginalization of aging women. The works offer an empowering message to women, urging them to embrace their sexuality and bodies unapologetically. The images are both playful and poignant, creating a space for the celebration of women's bodies and sexuality.

The images are aesthetically stunning as well as tongue in cheek, while also holding a political charge. Boliver's work succeeds in highlighting the beauty of aging women while encouraging viewers to recognize and celebrate female sexuality, autonomy, pleasure and the power that this holds.

ABOUT ROCÍO:
Rocío Boliver, known as La Congelada de Uva, is an iconic figure in underground performance art in Mexico and is internationally renowned. For over thirty years, her work has confronted the ideological grid that shapes women's lives, challenging ageism and capitalism's impact on women in the stage of life between menopause and old age. Boliver's performances aim to demystify the horror of old age by creating her own deranged aesthetic and moral solutions for the "problem of age." Her work critiques the repression of women and exposes the broken society based on looks and how old age became a synonymous of insult.

Boliver's performances have been presented in Europe, Asia, North and South America, and she has participated in important performance festivals globally. She is a grantee of the National System of Creators of Mexico and has also taken part in many alternative forums. Boliver's aesthetic is grotesque, and her performances disrupt accepted reality, revealing the most authentic truth when facing the inability to react.

www.thisisliveart.co.uk/resources/rocio-boliver-collection

-> Read more about the complete FACET programme HERE

OCTOBER 2023

ROCIO BOLIVER - ALICIA RADAGE - BENJAMIN SEBASTIAN - MARCIN GAWIN - JUNE LAM

“The exhibition serves as a window into the non-homogeneity of expanded queer communities, allowing for multifaceted readings of contemporary queer experiences.”

Launch Event:
6-9pm, Friday the 6th of October 2023

Exhibition Opening Hours:
12-5pm, Thursday to Sunday - 5th to 29th of October 2023

Curatorial Interventions:
VSSL have partnered with Ugly Duck / Queer Art Projects and took part in Pretty Doomed with opening performances by Alicia Radage and Benjamin Sebastian

-> Read Francis Whorrall-Campbell’s commissioned responsive, experimental text HERE

-> Read Iris Colomb’s commissioned responsive texts of Pretty Doomed‘s opening performances for Benjamin Sebastian HERE and Alicia Radage HERE 

The FACET programme's group exhibition unites the participating lead artists from the programme's multiple exhibitions, offering a unique and diverse range of artistic practices. The exhibition serves as a window into the non-homogeneity of expanded queer communities, allowing for multifaceted readings of contemporary queer experiences.

Through a variety of mediums such as performance (to camera), sculpture, video, photography, and installation, the group exhibition showcases different perspectives on contemporary queer experiences - connecting the various exhibitions and artists in the FACET programme - while highlighting the diversity of queer artistic practice.

Overall, the group exhibition offers a comprehensive and captivating look into the breadth of artistic approaches explored in the FACET programme, showcasing the unique perspectives of each participating artist and the interconnectedness of the expanded queer experience.

More information about each participating artist can be found via their respective FACET exhibition pages through the links provided below.

More about Alicia Radage + Benjamin Sebastian
More about June Lam
More about Rocío Boliver
More about Marcin Gawin

-> Read more about the complete FACET programme HERE

Future Anatomy, VestAndPage, 2023. Still from video. Image courtesy of the artists.

Artist Lab with VestAndPage

Future Anatomies: Exquisite Corpse, Exalted Flesh 

26th & 27th September, 11am - 5pm

Please join FUTURE RITUAL for this two day lab facilitated by the artists VestAndPage considering artistic reimaginings of the body. The capacity for this lab is limited. Please book early to avoid missing out.

£30/£40/£60 - Book here

Received social and political understandings of the body are demonstrated, unceasingly, to be weird and obsolete. Though we remain committed to the immediacy and centrality of our sweating, sensate forms, we desire to imagine new anatomies, new functions, and new modes of embodiment.

We will watch, read and discuss the work of artists and thinkers engaged in similar lines of enquiry, develop our own texts and scores, and explore performative strategies for reimagining the flesh. Informed by queer theory, ritual practice, post human phenomenology and dis/ability arts, the lab is a space to think creatively and fluidly into these new possibilities.

Key Info

Tues 26th & Weds 27th September 2023, 11am - 5pm,
VSSL Studio, Resolution Way, London, SE8 4AL

£30 (Concession) / £40 / £60 (Solidarity Ticket)
> Book tickets

This is an unfunded event, all ticket income goes to facilitator fees and the event costs. Buying a solidarity ticket helps support the attendance of those for whom otherwise would face financial barriers. If you face financial barriers and would like to attend but cannot afford the ticket price please email producing@futureritual.co.uk and we will do our best to accommodate you.

venue & access Info

VestAndPage’s trip to the UK is supported by the Italian Cultural Institute.

Under Scars, VestAndPage, Venice International Performance Art Week, 2022. Photo by Lorenza Cini.

Future Ritual

Future Ritual works  in service of new and more attuned cultures, collaborating with artists to create  contemporary expressions of ritual.

Intentionally shapeshifting between iterations, Future Ritual temporarily activates and inhabits borrowed spaces, organising public programmes and pedagogical exchanges, publishing artist-driven research, and collaborating as a creative producer with a  constellation of performance practitioners.

https://www.futureritual.co.uk

VestAndPage

Since 2006, German artist Verena Stenke (b. 1981) and Venetian-born artist and writer Andrea Pagnes (b. 1962) have been working together as VestAndPage and gained international recognition in the fields of performance art, performance-based film, writing, publishing, and with collective performance operas and temporary artistic community projects. Since over a decade, VestAndPage have been exploring performance art and film as phenomena through their collaborative creative practice, as well as through theoretical artistic research and curatorial projects. Their works – a celebration of life – have been presented in museums, galleries, theatres, cinemas and a variety of sites worldwide. Their writings have been extensively published and translated for international readers.

VestAndPage's art practice is contextual and situation-responsive, conceived psycho-geographically in response to social contexts, natural surroundings, historical sites and architectures. In their works they move between the unseen and the unforeseen, the unsaid, the forgotten and the repressed. They inquire performance art as an urgency to explore the physical, mental and spiritual bodies, where moments of crisis or extreme situations often see the crossing of boundaries by the break with norms and known orders, to interface with the ephemeral matter of art and existence.

On December 2012, VestAndPage conceived and initiated the live art exhibition project VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK. Between 2012 and 2016, the project showcased in the Trilogy of the Body historic pioneer works on exhibit in conjunction with live programs of durational performances, presenting over 120 international artists and an ongoing educational program. Since 2017, the project presents in the new format Co-Creation Live Factory an international educational platform with residential and collaborative nature.

Besides sharing their pedagogy on collaborative performance making in intensive workshops and co-creationclasses. Since 2019, they are tutoring guest artists at the Master of Performance Practices at ArtEZ University of the Arts, since 2020 at MA Performance at the Norwegian Theatre Academy.

https://www.vest-and-page.de

AUGUST 2023

“...collage can be seen as a form of resistance to dominant cultural narratives and a way to create new possibilities and futures. June Lam's use of collage in his work for the FACET programme continues this tradition.”

Launch Event:
6-9pm, Friday the 11th of August 2023
RSVP Here

Exhibition Opening Hours:
12-5pm, Thursday to Sunday - 10th to 27th of August 2023

Curatorial Interventions:
June will be curating two workshops through invitation to members of his communities:

TRANS DEITY PRACTICE
(Moderated by Joy Kinkaid and June Lam - taking place on the 15th of August, between 11:00 - 14:30)

COLLAGING THROUGH MOVEMENT
(Moderated by Jose Funnell, Pierre and June Lam - taking place on the 28th of August, between 11:00 - 14:30).

-> Read Donna Marcus Duke’s commissioned exhibition text HERE

video courtesy of Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance.

Collage has a rich history in queer aesthetics and has been a favoured medium for many queer artists. The act of collage-making mirrors the world-making practices of queer culture, where individuals and communities necessarily have learnt to explode, edit, discard and reassemble societal norms and expectations to create their own forms of identities, communities and aesthetics. In this sense, collage can be seen as a form of resistance to dominant cultural narratives and a way to create new possibilities and futures. June Lam's use of collage in his work for the FACET programme continues this tradition. June will be exhibiting 25 new and recent collage works, initiated during the COVID-19 Lockdowns.

installation images by Marco Berardi

ABOUT JUNE:
June Lam (b. 1990) is a community organiser and multidisciplinary artist of Chinese and Vietnamese ancestry, working across performance, dance, sculpture and collage. Trained in MA Sculpture at The Slade, his work centres queer desirability politics, fag effeminacy, and embodied experiences of intergenerational trauma. His performances involve leading meditations, connecting with ancestral parts, and movement inspired by deity practice. Creating intentional community spaces is intrinsic to June's artistic practice. He co-founded grassroots trans healthcare fund We Exist and founded queer East and South East Asian arts platform GGI끼. These both provide necessary direct action to centre marginalised communities, and address the classism and inaccessibility of traditional arts spaces by working outside of them.

This includes bringing the ethos of community organising into nightlife. GG 끼 emerged from a need for nightlife spaces safe from anti-Asian hate and transphobia, and offers relief from the fetishising gaze. GGI끼 showcases radical live performance, visual arts & DJs with a hard industrial sound, defying stereotypes around ESEA passivity. For We Exist, June produced group exhibition ‘In Dedication’ at The Koppel Project, featuring 28 trans artists from the UK and beyond. He is on the advisory board and programming team for This Bright Land at Somerset House, and was a judge for Guildhall Futures Fund 2022. June has performed and been exhibited at Site Gallery, Volksbuhne, Performing Borders, Ambika P3, Tate Modern, Ford Foundation, The Koppel Project, and others. June has been featured in E-Flux, Resident Advisor, Gal-Dem, Gay Times, GQ, Hunger, Dazed, Vogue UK, Vogue US, I-D, Tissue, Something Curated and AQNB; and created cover art for the fifth edition of Somesuch Stories, 2021.

@assignedfagatbirth

-> Read more about the complete FACET programme HERE

installation image, courtesy of Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance.

JUNE 2023

“While distinct in formal approaches, their practices enact a convergence at the thresholds of esoteric, spiritual and more-or-other-than-human domains and utterances.”

Launch Event:
6-9pm, Friday the 2nd of June 2023
RSVP for the launch event HERE

Exhibition Opening Hours: 
12-5pm, Thursday to Sunday - 1st to 18th of June 2023
Facebook Event Page

Curatorial Interventions:
6-9pm, Friday 2nd of June 2023
Performative interventions from A. Radage & B. Sebastian
RSVP here

6-7pm, Saturday the 17th of June 2023
Tamsin Hong (Curator, Exhibitions - Serpentine Galleries) in conversation with A. Radage & B. Sebastian
BOOK here

-> Read Lisa Slominski’s responsive text HERE

image from the launch event, courtesy of Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance.

VSSL Studio are proud to present the inaugural offering of the FACET programme, featuring a joint exhibition from artists Alicia Radage and Benjamin Sebastian. While distinct in formal approaches, their practices enact a convergence at the thresholds of esoteric, spiritual and more-or-other-than-human domains and utterances. 

Radage's work in performance, sculpture, video and sound, channels their research on neurodiverse experiences and animist practices, ultimately seeking to reconnect with the spiritual and non-human worlds through inter-entity communication. Sebastian's practice as a trans-disciplinary artist-curator is anchored in world-making experiments and processes of bricolage, often employing emotive and esoteric methodologies to subvert normative structures, through the mediums of video, performance, sculpture & installation.

The exhibition will showcase existing works by Radage and Sebastian, presented in dialogue with each other to reveal the underlying connections between their practices. The show's curatorial approach seeks to highlight the artists shared interest in alternative ontologies and their ongoing exploration of more-or-other-than-human perspectives. Through this joint exhibition, Radage and Sebastian invite audiences on a journey to reimagine our relationships with the seen and un-seen (as well as known and unknown) world(s), so that we may continue to consider alternative ways of being.

videos courtesy of Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance.

ABOUT ALICIA:
Radage’s practice manifests through performance, video, sculpture and sound. Their current research looks at the intersection between Neurodiverse experience and Animist practice, looking to ways of communicating and being outside of neurotypical, late capitalism. Their core concern is remembering a fluency in spiritual connection to the more than human. Their practice is activated through intuiting forms of interspecies communication. Alicia has taught at Universities on Fine Art and Theatre courses for both MA and BA courses. They have shown their work within the UK and internationally (Whitstable Biennale, MOMA Bogotá, Venice International Performance Art Week, GIANT Gallery, SPILL Festival, Perfolink Chile, Parlour London, Meno Parkas Lithuania). They have been supported by Arts Council England, The British Council and Shape Arts.  Alicia graduated from The Central School of Speech and Drama in 2011 with a Distinction in Advanced Theatre Practice.

aliciaradage.com

ABOUT BENJAMIN:
Benjamin Sebastian (b. Cairns*, AUS. 1980) is a trans-disciplinary artist-curator based in London. Their practice might be imagined as a constellation of mirrors; reflecting aspects of the body, time & space they inhabit - or - as world-making experiments; manifested through processes of bricolage, assemblage & ritual. Sebastian understands their artistic work as an anarcho-queer technology in the aid of queer, de-colonial & trans-humanist endeavour - activated through emotive, erotic & esoteric methodologies - driven by their neuro-divergent and non-binary experience. Sebastian received their BA Fine Art (HONS) from the University of Lincoln and is currently enrolled on the MA Curating Art and Public Programmes through Whitechapel Gallery. They are Chief Curator & Co-founding Director of ]performance s p a c e [ (]ps[) and Co-founding Co-director of VSSL Studio. Some of their most recent projects have included; guest curating the ‘INTERSECT’ series at LADA, speaking on the symposiums; ‘Art, Memory & Place’ at Turner Contemporary and ‘Un-dating the Obvious; Wired Love, Desire and Care’ at IKLECTIK, curating ‘PSX: A Decade of Performance Art in the U.K.’ on behalf of ]ps[, exhibition of their solo show; ‘Working With Entities//Setting Intent’ at VSSL Studio, and performance of their live installation; ‘3 Reflections²’ at the I.C.A. 

*The Gimuy Walubara Yidinji and the Yirrganydji peoples are the traditional custodians of Cairns and the surrounding district. Gimuy is the traditional place name for the area Cairns City now occupies. Sebastian wishes to pay respect to the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji and Yirrganydji Elders, both past and present, and extend that respect to all Indigenous Australians.

benjamin-sebastian.com

-> Read more about the complete FACET programme HERE