Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light

A solo, touring exhibition by Benjamin Sebastian

Launch Event:
6-9pm - Friday 31st January

Exhibition Run:
31st of January - 28th of February
Thursday - Sunday, 12-5pm (Monday - Wednesday by appointment)

Conversation with Joseph Morgan Schofield:
7pm, Thursday 13th of February - RSVP Here

Finissage:
6-9pm - Friday 28th of February- RSVP

Detail of ‘The Seemingly Innocent Are Not Without Danger’ (2024). Image courtesy of the artist, photographed by Eda Sancakdar.

“This predominantly new body of work by Benjamin Sebastian confronts their ancestral implication in violent structures of settler-colonialism, while holding space for a spiritually expansive understanding of our relationship to the world around us and the forces that shape it through multiple forms of coloniality. This exhibition reveals a visual language of stitch, pattern, symbolism and hybridity, developed to unravel complex personal and political histories...” - Jane Scarth

Installation view ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury (2024). Image courtesy of the artist.

Detail of ‘Sigil VI - New Ancients (Python/Adder/Entity III)’ (2024). Image courtesy of the artist.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

This timely exhibition of works by artist Benjamin Sebastian (b. 1980, Cairns, Australia. Lives and works in London, UK) is their largest solo presentation in the UK to date, consisting predominantly of new digital collage and textile works, soft sculpture and installation, as well as performance art documentation & relics. Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light traces Sebastian’s development as a collage, assemblage, installation & performance artist, sculptor and craftsperson - while foregrounding their current engagement with decoloniality; unpacking aspects of their settler heritage while reflecting on neurodivergent & nonbinary identity.

Sebastian’s oeuvre has often been described as; “...a constellation of mirrors; reflecting aspects of the body, times, spaces & relationships I (have) inhabit(ed) – or – as world-making experiments, manifested through intuitive, erotic and esoteric methodologies." Through such ‘constellation of mirrors’, Sebastian engages viewers in a multifocal examination of coloniality - acknowledging their position within historic colonizing processes (settler heritage) while also holding space for their position as a colonized subject (neurodivergent and nonbinary) - enacting a kind of mirror switch, whereby Sebastian’s personal histories and embodied experiences, become a collective platform, enabling wider social reflection regarding each individual’s position within systems of power, domination, liberation and resilience.

Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light is not intended to make sense, yet rather, as a process of sense-making - where hybrid identities, iconoclastic gestures, patchwork (visual) languages and amorphously gendered entities diffuse settled narratives - opening up spaces of unknowing, encouraging moments of contemplation, critical reflection and visioning in relation to the interconnected complexities of our contemporary, social and political landscapes.

> Extended exhibition text by Jane Scarth

Detail of ‘The Seemingly Dangerous Are Not Without Innocents’ (2024). Image courtesy of the artist.

Installation view ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury (2024). Image courtesy of the artist.

ABOUT BENJAMIN:

Benjamin Sebastian (1980 AUS/UK) is a trans-disciplinary visual artist and curator living in London (UK). Their work spans performance, sculpture, curation, video, text, installation, drawing & new media - rooted in processes of bricolage, assemblage, collage, ritual & DIY cultural production. Through harmonizing nonbinary perspectives, neurodivergent cognition and decolonial practice, Sebastian weaves nascent narratives into existence, offering alternative ways of remembering, being here-and-now, and charting pathways to futures yet formed. They hold a BA Fine Art HONS (1st Class) from the University of Lincoln and MA Curating Art and Public Programmes through Whitechapel Gallery. Sebastian’s continued research interests include; artificial/synthetic intelligence, occult practices, queer ecologies, decolonialism, transhumanism, contemporary performance & visual art. Sebastian is a founding director of both ]performance s p a c e [ and VSSL Studio and their affiliated projects have received funding from Arts Council England, the British Council, Greater London Authority, Creative Folkestone, Kent County Council, Inspire Lewisham, Roger De Haan Charitable Trust and Live Art U.K. as well as other charities and local authorities. Some of their most recent activities include: curating ‘Archipelago: Visions in Orbit’ at Whitechapel Gallery, performance of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ as part of Pretty Doomed at Ugly Duck (2023), exhibition of ‘Benjamin Sebastian + Alicia Radage’ at VSSL Studio (2023) curating ‘FACET’ at VSSL Studio (2023), guest curating the ‘Intersect series’ at the Live Art Development Agency (2023), speaking on the symposium; ‘Art, Memory & Place’ at Turner Contemporary (2022), as well as performance of their live installation ‘3 Reflections²’ as part of FUTURERITUAL at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2022).

*The Gimuy Walubara Yidinji and the Yirrganydji peoples are the traditional custodians of Cairns and 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.

www.benjamin-sebastian.com
@benjaminsebastian