archive
2020 to present
Image by Kane Stonestreet.
Taking the function of a studio as a site of artistic creation, Live Art Club expands the idea of what a studio can be. Rather than imagining a studio as a private, enclosed space, Live Art Club proposes the studio as a place of gathering, where creative experiments take place in dialogue with peers and community.
Do you have part of a new idea, an experiment in working with an audience, a way of moving your body, a series of sounds you’re excited by, an unexpected activation of the space, an interruption of tradition, guttural words that want to explode out of you, a re-performance of a forgotten idea or anything else that might look/feel/taste like Live Art?
We want to see it! Share what you’ve been working on with us at our next event on February 1st.
Do you have part of a new idea, an experiment in working with an audience, a way of moving your body, a series of sounds you’re excited by, an unexpected activation of the space, an interruption of tradition, guttural words that want to explode out of you, a re-performance of a forgotten idea or anything else that might look/feel/taste like Live Art?
We want to see it! Share what you’ve been working on with us at our next event on February 1st.


Live Art Club is a monthly open platform for performance art, taking place on the 1st of the month at VSSL. It is free to attend and free to participate in.
Audiences, please do RSVP to let us know you are coming.
Audiences, please do RSVP to let us know you are coming.
Project Info, Venue, Access
>Live Art Club project info
>Location & access
Contact
LiveArtClubLdn@gmail.com
info@vssl-studio.org
>Live Art Club project info
>Location & access
Contact
LiveArtClubLdn@gmail.com
info@vssl-studio.org

Live Art Club
December 2022
Tuesday 20th December 2022, 7.30pm
Taking the function of a studio as a site of artistic creation, Live Art Club expands the idea of what a studio can be. Rather than imagining a studio as a private, enclosed space, Live Art Club proposes the studio as a place of gathering, where creative experiments take place in dialogue with peers and community.
Do you have part of a new idea, an experiment in working with an audience, a way of moving your body, a series of sounds you’re excited by, an unexpected activation of the space, an interruption of tradition, guttural words that want to explode out of you, a re-performance of a forgotten idea or anything else that might look/feel/taste like Live Art?
We want to see it! Share what you’ve been working on with us at our next event on December 20th.
Do you have part of a new idea, an experiment in working with an audience, a way of moving your body, a series of sounds you’re excited by, an unexpected activation of the space, an interruption of tradition, guttural words that want to explode out of you, a re-performance of a forgotten idea or anything else that might look/feel/taste like Live Art?
We want to see it! Share what you’ve been working on with us at our next event on December 20th.


Live Art Club is a monthly open platform for performance art, taking place on the 1st of the month at VSSL. It is free to attend and free to participate in.
Audiences, please do RSVP to let us know you are coming.
Audiences, please do RSVP to let us know you are coming.
Project Info, Venue, Access
>Live Art Club project info
>Location & access
Contact
LiveArtClubLdn@gmail.com
info@vssl-studio.org
>Live Art Club project info
>Location & access
Contact
LiveArtClubLdn@gmail.com
info@vssl-studio.org
Fest En Fest
DEAD Unplugged
by Beauty and the Beast

An extract of DEAD by Beauty and the Beast performed by Amanda Petrea (SE) and Halla Olafsdottir (IS/SE) with food and drink.
Beauty and the Beast is a fake band, a dance performance, a party, a workshop and a life long collaboration between the choreographers Amanda Apetrea, Halla Ólafsdóttir and some of their friends. Their latest dance performance is called DEAD.
DEAD unplugged is a poetry reading, where the duo reads their favourite parts from their dance performance DEAD. Exploring expressions of sexuality, body and gender, flirting with the power of horniness and lust. A power that they believe can move mountains. The reading will happen in a cosy casual setting so come as you are.
Halla Ólafsdóttir (IS) and Amanda Apetrea (SE)
For more than two decades the duo Beauty and the Beast, Amanda Apetrea and Halla Ólafsdóttir have remained a mythical force in dance and have created new lyrical expressions with their gravelly voices and poetic dances – musing over love, heartbreaks, friendship and togetherness, war, death and sex
Their new show, DEAD, is a pornographic and dystopian dance performance that merges dance, poetry, music, the beauty of darkness and the in between, seeing inner and outer realities. Exploring expressions of sexuality, body and gender flirting with the power of horniness and lust. A power that they believe can move mountains.
The show will be performed under consent in agreement with its audience, which means that anyone who enters agrees to whatever will happen during the show. It also means that anyone can leave at any time. As always it is about you and them and all the love in between.
Beauty and the Beast is a fake band, a dance performance, a party, a workshop and a life long collaboration between the choreographers Amanda Apetrea, Halla Ólafsdóttir and some of their friends. Their latest dance performance is called DEAD.
DEAD unplugged is a poetry reading, where the duo reads their favourite parts from their dance performance DEAD. Exploring expressions of sexuality, body and gender, flirting with the power of horniness and lust. A power that they believe can move mountains. The reading will happen in a cosy casual setting so come as you are.
Halla Ólafsdóttir (IS) and Amanda Apetrea (SE)
For more than two decades the duo Beauty and the Beast, Amanda Apetrea and Halla Ólafsdóttir have remained a mythical force in dance and have created new lyrical expressions with their gravelly voices and poetic dances – musing over love, heartbreaks, friendship and togetherness, war, death and sexTheir new show, DEAD, is a pornographic and dystopian dance performance that merges dance, poetry, music, the beauty of darkness and the in between, seeing inner and outer realities. Exploring expressions of sexuality, body and gender flirting with the power of horniness and lust. A power that they believe can move mountains.
The show will be performed under consent in agreement with its audience, which means that anyone who enters agrees to whatever will happen during the show. It also means that anyone can leave at any time. As always it is about you and them and all the love in between.
Time & Date
Saturday 26 November, 7pm - 12am>Location & access
>info@vssl-studio.org
Tickets
Tickets are £3-£5, buy them here.Credits & Contact
Fest en Fest is an international festival of expanded choreography initiated and curated by H2DANCE. This project makes space for artists and audiences to come together and present performances and ideas, twisting and turning the definition of what choreography can be.>more

Taking the function of a studio as a site of artistic creation, Live Art Club expands the idea of what a studio can be. Rather than imagining a studio as a private, enclosed space, Live Art Club proposes the studio as a place of gathering, where creative experiments take place in dialogue with peers and community.
Do you have part of a new idea, an experiment in working with an audience, a way of moving your body, a series of sounds you’re excited by, an unexpected activation of the space, an interruption of tradition, guttural words that want to explode out of you, a re-performance of a forgotten idea or anything else that might look/feel/taste like Live Art?
We want to see it! Share what you’ve been working on with us at our next event on November 3rd.
Do you have part of a new idea, an experiment in working with an audience, a way of moving your body, a series of sounds you’re excited by, an unexpected activation of the space, an interruption of tradition, guttural words that want to explode out of you, a re-performance of a forgotten idea or anything else that might look/feel/taste like Live Art?
We want to see it! Share what you’ve been working on with us at our next event on November 3rd.


Live Art Club is a monthly open platform for performance art, taking place on the 1st of the month at VSSL. It is free to attend and free to participate in.
Audiences, please do RSVP to let us know you are coming.
Project Info, Venue, Access
>Live Art Club project info
>Location & access
Contact
LiveArtClubLdn@gmail.com
info@vssl-studio.org
Audiences, please do RSVP to let us know you are coming.
Project Info, Venue, Access
>Live Art Club project info
>Location & access
Contact
LiveArtClubLdn@gmail.com
info@vssl-studio.org
Gathering in a Time of Plague
VSSL studio programme
November 2020 - June 2021Kimvi, VSSL studio, 2021. Photo by Zack Mennell.
VSSL was established in a time of plague. In response to the conditions of pandemic, we intend that the studio remains a place where performance practices may continue to unfold, unmediated by the screen. Our work continues to foreground the power and immediacy of live performance.
Gathering in a Time of Plague was VSSL’s first public programme, and featured a series of developmental and performance opportunities, which were programmed by invitation and open call.
→ PROGRAMME ARCHIVE
Gathering in a Time of Plague was VSSL’s first public programme, and featured a series of developmental and performance opportunities, which were programmed by invitation and open call.
→ PROGRAMME ARCHIVE
Artists
Kelvin AtmadibrataAdriana Disman
Chinasa Vivian Ezugha
Jasper Llewellyn
E.M. Parry
Niya B
Shaun Caton
Jade Blackstock
Kimvi
Curators
Benjamin SebastianJoseph Morgan Schofield
The programme was funded by public funds from Arts Council England, and by VSSL studio and ]performance s p a c e[.
With thanks to Ash McNaughton.

Kelvin Atmadibrata, PSX exhibition launch, VSSL studio, 2021. Photo by Zack Mennell.
Studio Residencies
→ Gathering in a Time of PlagueOur studio community was joined by artists Kelvin Atmadibrata and Adriana Disman, who undertook seven month studio residencies at VSSL, supported by Arts Council England and ]performance s p a c e[.
As an expansion of my post-graduate investigation of the performing masculine body, I was introduced to the language of queer abstraction and minimalist erotica that I have since been experimenting and developing within my illustration of the mecha and transhumanist fantasy. The past months of lockdown and consequential shift towards the digital have also evoked queries upon my personal pace as I struggled to keep up with both the pandemic and the online, both that have more than ever, evolved with such robust momentums. I plan to utilize the studio space, peer and mentoring support with VSSL to reflect on these observations and refocus my productive engine with the ultimate aim of progressing my current artistic inquiries.
-Kelvin Atmadibrata
VSSL interviewed Kelvin about his practice, the relationship between fantasy, the erotic, drawing and performance, and the importance of studio culture.
-Kelvin Atmadibrata
VSSL interviewed Kelvin about his practice, the relationship between fantasy, the erotic, drawing and performance, and the importance of studio culture.
→ read Kelvin’s interview

VSSL studio, 2021. Photo by Zack Mennell.

VSSL studio, 2021. Photo by Zack Mennell.
The love of my life is performance art. In the current context in which we are not able to witness the work of others, my own practice has shrivelled. It has no physical or mental space. It needs the nourishment and accountability to more creatures, to discover how it is now and what serves it. Through the support of this residency, I intent to cultivate a nourishing studio culture that mobilises potential exchange between artists to re-energise my commitment to my own practice. I am not looking for a simple physical space from which to transplant an already known practice, I’m looking for sparring partners who will challenge and push me with love and become part of the space that will form the practice. I dream that in this way, I might find some delicious edges from which to push off and kick out into a new ocean. Performance is vast.
-Adriana Disman
Kelvin and Adriana presented works made during the residency at the exhibition launch for PSX: a decade of performance art in the UK.
Kelvin Atmadibrata, PSX exhibition launch, VSSL studio, 2021. Film and editing by Baiba Sprance and Marco Beradi.
Kelvin Atmadibrata, PSX exhibition launch, VSSL studio, 2021. Film and editing by Baiba Sprance and Marco Beradi.
Adriana Disman, PSX exhibition launch, VSSL studio, 2021. Film and editing by Baiba Sprance and Marco Beradi.
Performance Programme
→ Gathering in a Time of PlagueThe Gathering in a Time of Plague programme featured seven live performance works by Chinasa Vivian Ezugha, Jasper Llewellyn, EM Parry, Niya B, Shaun Caton, Kimvi and Jade Blackstock. unfolding in and around VSSL in the spring and early summer.
Gathering in a Time of Plague compilation video. Videography and editing by Baiba Sprance and Marco Berad
Tongues
Chinasa Vivian Ezugha
Saturday 17th April, 2021Imagine a new space, a space of possibilities- vocality and movement. The mouth is the new theatre. RE-imagining space and the placement of the body in space, this performance will use the tongue as the point of entry into a new performative space. ( I may need to speak with you to expand )
Tongues is a one-to-one performance by Chinasa Vivian Ezugha, with each encounter lasting around 5 minutes.
Chinasa Vivian Ezugha is a Nigerian-born artist living and working in Hampshire. Her work looks at the transition of Black women and their identity within culture from colonised subjects to emancipated figures. Vivian works predominantly in performance, using the medium to decontextualise and reconstruct what it means to be alive in this present time andtoprotest for a worldwhere we are all allowed to dream. She is the founder of Live Art in Wymondham, a one-day site-specific series of events that aimed to bring emerging artists working in live art to rural Norfolk.
Her work has been presented in venues across Europe, America and the UK, including In Between Time Festival (Bristol, 2017),SPILL Festival (Ipswich, 2018) and Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival (Chicago, 2015). She is the winner of the New Art Exchange Open Main Prize (2019), and a recipient of the Santander Universities Post Covid-19 Performance Making Enterprise Award (2020).
vcezugha.wixsite.com/work-in-progress
Jasper Llewellyn
Saturday 8th May 2021Working to the tidal rhythm of the Thames, Jasper Llewellyn’s work began on the shore of the river, before continuing at VSSL.
The work for VSSL contributes to a larger body of action-based interventions that Llewellyn has undertaken on the Thames foreshore in Deptford since mid-2020, most of which have been conducted without an audience. This ongoing series of actions are embodied attempts to attune to the diverse array of affective and nonhuman entities that comprise the assemblage that we term ‘the Thames’, reimagining our relationship to the river as a whole in the process.
Jasper Llewellyn is an artist working with actions, sounds and words. His ongoing PHD research project involves the deployment of various embodied artistic strategies in order to take an expanded view of improvisation, treating it both as a methodology for living and art-making. He makes music with the project ‘caroline’ and has had writing published in Frieze magazine.
www.jasperllewellyn.co.uk/

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Deptford, London, UK
SE8 4AL
Contact: info@vssl-studio.org
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