Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and Jennifer Mehigan: Biolytic Daughter

Exhibition by
Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and Jennifer Mehigan

Still from "Uncensored Lilac" HD CGI Film, 2024. A collaboration between Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and Jennifer Mehigan - (Image Desciption: The digital image depicts a fantastical figure with a smooth, pale face and piercing red eyes. From their head extend multiple fleshy, twisting, horn-like forms that resemble both antlers and tendrils. White petal-like fragments float around them, creating movement against the dark backdrop. The combination of humanoid and otherworldly features evokes a sense of dreamlike intensity).

Opening Hours

Opening Night: 6pm to 9pm, Thursday 6 November
12pm to 5pm, 6th to 30th of November
Thurs to Sat (Closed Sunday to Wednesday)
at VSSL Studio

︎︎︎Audio Recording of the Exhibition Text
︎︎︎Plain English Version of the Exhibition Text
︎︎︎Visual Story of how to get to VSSL Studio

At the centre of Biolytic Daughter is Uncensored Lilac, a 30-minute video work that tells a story of revenge and desire. A group of goddesses and their assembly of familiars, pets, servants, and technologies are lounging. Separated from one another, they share a land but not a common ground. They have been invaded. They are pretty, hot, bothered, and bored. They are ready to destroy each other. They look deep into the camera and recite their deepest wishes, hopes, dreams, and fantasies. Meanwhile, temperatures are rising. They morph and grow and make their rage known. Quick to anger, their tempers rise with the heat.

Set in a dreamlike hallucinatory landscape, the film features a series of monologues given by these mega-femme entities who have everything and nothing to say. They describe their hopes and desires, bicker, interact from a distance, and refuse to unite. In the cultivation of an economy where hotness equals power, this kind of global warming is no surprise – rising tempers and rising temperatures. Increasingly isolated from each other, they hold on tight to their apolitical, apathetic, consumer-driven dreams.

Within the exhibition space, a series of sculptures, multiple sized cutouts, paintings and prints extend this world out from the screen. The brutality of these mega-femmes comes to life: giant, veiny legs and a woolly sheep act as monuments disrupting the scale of the world built in the film and anchoring us to their climate-altered world. Contrasting the relationship between avatars and screens, and the feminine and the landscape – a common trope in feminist utopian literature – Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and Jennifer Mehigan question how we embody and are altered by climate collapse. Reflecting on the flatness of the screen, and their flattening of politics, they explore the impossibility and bureaucracy of being right in what can feel like the end of the world.

Exhibition Posters, 2025, A collaboration between Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and Jennifer Mehigan - (Image Description: The poster depicts a fantastical, androgynous figure with pointed ears and shimmering skin, emerging from dark reflective water alongside a horse. The figure holds a glowing pink heart-shaped object, casting soft light onto their chest and hair. Behind them, jagged rocky formations rise against a stark black mythical background. At the bottom of the image, bold white lettering reads; Biolytic Daughter).

Exhibition Posters, 2025, A collaboration between Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and Jennifer Mehigan - (Image Description: The artwork features a surreal humanoid figure with glossy black curved horns, elongated ears, and sharp white fangs emerging from an oversized mouth. Their skin has a pale, fleshy texture with protruding ridges along the shoulders, while long black hair frames their face. The background is a flat grey, overlaid with bold white silhouettes of flowers and plants. Above the figure, gothic white text spells; Biolytic Daughter).

About Bassam Issa Al-Sabah

Bassam Issa Al-Sabah is an artist working with digital animation, painting, sculpture and textiles. his installations interrogate the intersection of fantasy and trauma, employing speculative worlds as a lens through which to explore the mechanisms of memory and identity formation. Frequently drawing on the visual lexicon of video games, anime, and popular culture, constructing alternative realities that function as both a means of escape and critical commentary. These Surrealistic spaces are often juxtaposed with stark depictions of violence and destruction, their landscapes and fragmented narratives mirroring the dissonant nature of recollection and the complex processes of self-reconstruction.

At the core of his practice is an investigation into how digital culture and virtual environments mediate experiences of trauma, displacement, and loss. These constructed worlds provide a framework for reimagining personal and collective histories, where the fantastical serves not only as a refuge but as a site of confrontation

Recent solo exhibitions include Uncensored Lilac, in collaboration with Jennifer Mehigan at Silent Green, Transmediale, Berlin (2024), IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE TAKE THIS!, The Douglas Hyde Gallery of Contemporary Art, Dublin (2022), I AM ERROR, Gasworks, London (2021), and De La Warr Pavilion, Sussex (2022).

www.bassamissa.xyz

About Jennifer Mehigan

Jennifer Mehigan's prints and paintings fuse diverse media and sources, including 3D scans of her garden, images of plants growing on the graves of strange Irish women, the archive of Victorian portrait photographer Lady Clementina Hawarden, the four-dimensional drawings by the Cork-born mathematician Alicia Boole, and an encrypted codex known as the Voynich manuscript. Using paint, inkjet, graphics cards, neural networks, pearl powder and gel, her works blend new and old methods of making and processing the world – a relationship the artist views as a ‘strained mother-daughter bond’. Mehigan’s wider practice also incorporates CGI, sculpture, filmmaking, perfumery, writing, parties, artificial intelligence and horticulture, deploying sensory experience to explore queerness and femininity.

Mehigan regularly creates work in collaboration with artist Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and and is a former member of Temporary Pleasure, a rave architecture collective. Her PhD research at Belfast School of Art speculates about Ireland’s 'abstract' and anorexic women after the Famine, revisiting isolation, illegibility and ‘image hunger’ in the age of techno-surveillance.

Recent exhibitions include Uncensored Lilac, with Bassam Issa Al-Sabah, transmediale studio, Berlin (2024); 4D MOUND NETWORK, An Chultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, Belfast; HERE COMES LOVE, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin (both 2023); Nightbloom Chokehold at Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2022) and Creamatorium 2 at transmediale, Berlin (2021). She is based in Limerick

www.default.garden

About carefuffle

Carefuffle is a disabled and queer-led working group rooted in the principles of care, interconnectedness, authorship and social justice.

We are dedicated to celebrating disabled and queer talent and genius. Our commitment to challenging the ableist narratives and socio-cultural exclusion comes from the belief in the wholeness of disability and access as a collective joy and shared responsibility towards a liberatory future .

When we say “Working Group,” we honour the community and everyone who has an impact on what we do and how we think, as well as the lineages of Disability Justice and Crip community wisdom that make our work possible. They generously share their wisdom, knowledge, and skills with us, profoundly influencing our practices and thought processes. Without them, Carefuffle would not exist.

www.care-fuffle.com

Access Information for the Exhibition

The exhibition is free to attend.

Getting Here

VSSL is on Resolution Way, on the ground floor of an apartment building called Resolution Studios, opposite the commercial arches.
It is part of the creative hub Enclave, which includes other galleries and creative spaces.
ADDRESS: VSSL Studio, Enclave 50, Resolution Way. London SE8 4AL
View on Google Maps
VISUAL STORY: How to Get to VSSL (PDF available)

Step-free access

Step-free access to VSSL is available via Tidemill Way
Please check the Visual Story for Directional photos of the route

Parking and Drop-Off Points

Accessible parking: The nearest accessible parking is on Frankham Street (Pay & Display / Parking Boulevard).
It is a tree-lined road with spaces on both sides.
The walk from Frankham Street to VSSL takes around 4 minutes via Tidemill Way.
Drop-off point: The nearest car drop-off point is on Tidemill Way, behind Deptford Lounge.
From here, there is a short, step-free route through the car park directly to VSSL.

Public Transport

VSSL is well connected by public transport.

Train: The nearest rail station is Deptford Station, about 4 minutes’ walk along a flat route. The station has step-free access.
DLR: Deptford Bridge Station is about 10 minutes’ walk along a flat route. It also has step-free access.
Bus: The closest stop is Wavelengths on Deptford Church Street.
Only bus 47 serves this stop. It runs between Bellingham (Catford Bus Garage) and Shoreditch, passing through Lewisham, Deptford, Canada Water, Bermondsey, London Bridge, and Liverpool Street Station.

(See Visual Story for more detail.)

Auditory and Visual Access

The film in the exhibition will always include open captions.
Exhibition texts are available in Plain English, Large Print, and Audio Recording formats in the venue and online.

Space Information

The exhibition space measures 3.95 metres wide, 6 metres long, and 4 metres high.
The entrance door is 1.70 metres wide, heavy, and opens manually inward.
Please ask a member of staff for assistance if needed.
Lighting: Dim lights throughout, with video projector and soft yellow lighting.
Noise / Volume: The video includes rather loud noise; please be advised.
Temperature: Warmer than outside but still cool.

Seating

Two types of seating are available:

A single bench
Chairs with backs

Walking Canes

There are 2 walking canes available for visitors who would like extra support.

Support Animals

Support animals are welcome.
Drinking bowls will be provided.

COVID Safety

The exhibition space is medium-sized (3.95m × 6m × 4m), which may limit air circulation when crowded.
We provide N95 masks and hand sanitiser at the entrance.
We encourage visitors to test before attending and to wear a face mask during the exhibition.

Scent-Conscious Space

To help keep VSSL safe for everyone, please avoid wearing perfume or scented products whenever possible.

Toilets

There is one toilet located along the Resolution Way fenced path, two doors down from VSSL.
It is gender-neutral and wheelchair accessible.

The toilet includes:

One hinged rail and one vertical rail beside the toilet
Two vertical rails by the sink
An emergency cord that reaches the floor (on the right side of the toilet)

The toilet door is heavy and opens manually outward.

Smoking Area

Smoking areas will be clearly marked.
Please do not smoke near the entrance to VSSL.

Emergency Exit and Assembly Point

Emergency exits are clearly marked throughout the space.
The Designated Assembly Point is in the Tidemill Way car park, near the gates.
In case of emergency, staff will guide visitors safely to the assembly point.

Credits

BASSAM ISSA AL-SABAH AND JENNIFER MEHIGAN: BIOLYTIC DAUGHTER as part of ENTANGLEMENTS OF THE APOCALYPSE is co-curated by Mine Kaplangı, Benjamin Sebastian, Joseph Morgan Schofield and Ash McNaughton. The programme is made possible with public funding from the National Lottery and Arts Council England and Cultúr Éireann (Culture Ireland). It is supported by Carefuffle, who are collaborating creatively with the artists to shape access throughout the project.

Exhibition by Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and Jennifer Mehigan