archive
2020 to present
Robin Bale, Nov 2022.
Live Art Club
Live Art Club is a monthly platform for artists to try out new ideas in a supportive environment. It takes place on the first day of most months at VSSL studio.
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.
Join Live Art Club
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.
> Info for Artists
Next:
There is no need to book, just come along to the event.
> Location & access
Weds 1st November, 7pm
There is no need to book, just come along to the event.
> Location & access
Index
July 2023May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
June 2022
May 2022
Sweaetshops. December 2022.
Lori Lo Bianco
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
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 Frances Whorrall-Campbell’s commissioned responsive, experimental text HERE
B.Sebastian - Video: Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance - 2023.
A.Radage - Video: Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance - 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.
FACET Group Exhibition launch event documentation - Video: Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance - 2023.
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 information about each participating artist can be found via their respective FACET exhibition pages through the links provided below.
Installation photos by Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance - 2023.
Installation photos by Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance - 2023.
Installation photos by Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance - 2023.
Installation photos by Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance - 2023.
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 - 5pmPlease 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
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
Alicia Radage + Benjamin Sebastian
installation image, courtesy of Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance.
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
image from the launch event, courtesy of Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance.
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
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
Gathering in a Time of Plague
VSSL studio programme
November 2020 - June 2021
Kimvi, 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
Kelvin Atmadibrata, PSX exhibition launch, VSSL studio, 2021. Photo by Zack Mennell.
Adriana Disman, PSX exhibition launch, 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.
Niya B, VSSL studio, 2021. Photo by Zack Mennell.Gathering in a Time of Plague compilation video. Videography and editing by Baiba Sprance and Marco Berad
Tongues, Chinasa Vivian Ezugha, VSSL studio, 2021. Photos by Zack Mennell.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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VSSL studio
Enclave, 50 Resolution Way
Deptford, London, UK
SE8 4AL
Contact: info@vssl-studio.org
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VSSL studio logo design by Ben Normanton.