Up Next:
FACET Group Exhibition
PV: 6-9pm, Friday the 6th of October 2023
RSVP Here
FACET Group Exhibition
PV: 6-9pm, Friday the 6th of October 2023
RSVP Here
Image: Marcin Gawin - The Great One - 2023
Scroll down to find more information.
FACET Group Exhibition
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
RSVP Here
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 will be taking part in Pretty Doomed more information coming soon!
Marcin Gawin - The Great One - 2023.
Alicia Radage - Soft Shield - 2023.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:
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
Rocío Boliver
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:
6-9pm, Friday the 10th of November 2023
Exhibition Opening Hours:
12-5pm, Thursday to Sunday - 9th to 26th of November 2023
Curatorial Interventions:
To be announced closer to exhibition launch event.
image courtesy of Rocío Boliver.
image courtesy of Rocío Boliver.Boliver's collaboration with photographer Karolina Bazydlo and model 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
Marcin Gawin
JANUARY 2024
“His fascination with the human body and its’ potential for transformation is evident in his practice, which explores the bodys function in mundane practicality, as well as in speculative and occult realities.”
Launch Event:
5-9pm, Friday the 12th of January 2024
Exhibition Opening Hours:
12-5pm, Thursday to Sunday - 11th to 28th of January 2024
Curatorial Interventions:
To be announced closer to exhibition launch event.
image courtesy of Marcin Gawin.
image courtesy of Marcin Gawin.ABOUT MARCIN:
Marcin Gawin is an interdisciplinary artist based in Bristol, whose work encompasses image construction, installation, and live art. His fascination with the human body and its’ potential for transformation is evident in his practice, which explores the bodys function in mundane practicality, as well as in speculative and occult realities.
In 2019, Marcin completed Marina Abramovic’s Cleaning the House training in durational performance, further developing his expertise in this area. He also honed his skills in The Sunday Skool for Misfits, Experimenters, and Dissenters, where he studied under Martin O’Brien, Shabnam Shabazi, and Joseph Morgan Schofield in 2021.
Currently, Marcin is pursuing an MA in Virtual and Extended Realities at the University of the West of England, where he is researching the concept of embodied cognition in virtual environments and utilizing immersion as an artistic strategy.
Marcin's work has been presented at various locations, including the Palace International Film Festival in Bristol, Modern Art Oxford, Terytoria Festiwal in Poland, and Oxford Brookes University. His solo and participatory work is sure to leave a lasting impression.
@mrcn.gwn
-> Read more about the complete FACET programme HERE
June Lam
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.”
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
installation images by Marco Berardi
installation images by Marco Berardi
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.
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
installation images by Marco Berardi
Limited edition (30/30) prints available at VSSL Studio
Limited edition (30/30) prints available at VSSL Studio
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
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
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