Am I not a woman and a sister
Manchester-based artist Elizabeth Kwant‘s new moving image installation at the International Slavery Museum is co-created with female survivors of modern day slavery. The work is the culmination of a year-long project Kwant undertook, researching the archives and collection of the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum in order to better understand the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its connections to the north west of England. Through objects, actions, sound and repetitive movements, the film reflects on colonial slavery and its ongoing legacy in modern Britain, raising questions of colonial history and human trafficking today.
Until 15 February 2020, International Slavery Museum, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Royal Albert Dock, Liverpool L3 4AQ.
www.a-n.co.uk/events/am-i-not-a-woman-and-a-sister/
Orchestra of Destruction
This site-specific collaboration between explosives artist Aoife Van Linden Tol and composer Jaydev Mistry promises to be an ‘intimate and dangerous’ audio-visual experience. Van Linden Tol’s live explosions will be interwoven with Mistry’s composition which is constructed around the latent frequencies that exist within south London’s Ovalhouse theatre, as well as recordings of Van Linden Tol’s explosions. Inspired by the theatre’s radical history, the event is also part of the ‘demolition party season’ which invites artists to destroy parts of the building as Ovalhouse prepares to close its current Kennington location ahead of its relocation to Brixton in 2021.
30 November 2019, Ovalhouse, 52–54 Kennington Oval, London, SE11 5SW. www.a-n.co.uk/events/orchestra-of-destruction/
Surviving, Bow Open 2019
Victoria Burgher‘s Surviving is an installation of hundreds of fragments of a gold foil survival blanket cast in ceramic, laminated in gold leaf and displayed as archaeological shards. The work is part of this year’s Bow Open which was selected by Carey Young from a call for works that respond to ‘our current political moment’. The result is a selection of artworks that engage with varied political themes including migration, gender identity, borders and climate change.
29 November – 5 December 2019, Nunnery Gallery, 181 Bow Road, London E3 2SJ. www.a-n.co.uk/events/surviving-at-bow-open-2019/
Jennie Savage talk
Artist and curator Jennie Savage discusses The Arcades Project, the research project she began in 2007, parallel to the construction of Cardiff’s St Davids 2 development. At the heart of the project were questions about the ‘trajectory of capitalism, architecture as an embodied experience of that system and the city centre as a relational experience’. Savage’s research project consisted of an archive of interrelated experiences from the city, the Victorian Arcades and an anticipation of what St Davids 2 might bring, and involved a range of people, from the developers and architects of the scheme through to historians, Marxists, writers and city users.
30 November 2019, The Arcades Project, 8a Duke Street Arcade, Cardiff . www.a-n.co.uk/events/jennie-savage-talk/
Images:
1. Elizabeth Kwant, Am I not a woman and a sister. Image © Elizabeth Kwant Art, 2019
2. Explosive art installation performance by Aoife Van Linden Tol. Photo: Sebastian Heroiu
3. Victoria Burgher, Surviving, 2019. Ceramic and gold leaf, 170x90cm. Photo: Alberto Romano.
4. Jennie Savage, Intermission, 2008, from the series Nutopia
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Assembly Stoke-on-Trent: “artists can use their voices in subtle, strategic and disobedient ways”
Framework: programme to support artists’ professional skills announced
