Slump City
Presents the work of three emerging artists whose visionary and haunting work combines gothic fantasy, poetic social realism and psycho-geography to imagine the urban periphery.
London, United Kingdom, May 01, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Slump City
Laura Oldfield-Ford, Karen Russo & Tessa Farmer
6th - 26th June 2009
As the consequences of the global recession take effect, the regeneration of East London, traditional home of London’s largest artist community, has slowed and the promised Olympic legacy looks in doubt. It is within this context that SPACE presents ‘Slump City’, an exhibition presenting the work of three exciting emerging artists whose visionary and haunting work combines gothic fantasy, poetic social realism and psycho-geography to imagine the urban periphery.
Laura Oldfield Ford, recent graduate of the RCA and winner of the VABT award, had her first show at Marlborough Fine Art last Autumn, followed by exhibitions at Hales Gallery and Arnolfini in Bristol. For ‘Slump City’, Oldfield Ford is making a new piece, a large wall of A2 drawings which feed from her ongoing subjective exploration and psycho-geographic mapping of the neglected backwaters of the city. These relay a broken narrative centered on an East London that is being cleared and sanitised for the 2012 Olympic games.
Karen Russo is known internationally for her video, drawing and sculpture and the strange and disturbing source materials which she uses to transform the everyday into contemporary surreal and gothic imagery exploring romantic notions of the sublime. For ‘Slump City’ Russo presents a filmed excursion inside an urban sewage pipe system. Viewed through a small robot camera used to locate blockages, an ever-expanding system of sewer pipes is revealed, mapping the underbelly of our city.
Tessa Farmer’s recent practice has been inspired by her 2007 residency at London’s Natural History Museum, playing on a strong undercurrent of horror and abjection that has always existed as a counter-narrative to the Victorian tradition of naturalism to which Tessa Farmer’s work offers a redress. For ‘Slump City’ she will be presenting her stuffed and reawakened ‘road kill’ arranged into fantasy scenarios where insect fairy tormentors seek revenge for all their brethren once smothered in killing jars and pinned in display case trophies. Tessa Farmer’s work was included in the 2004 edition of the ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries’, where her installation ‘Swarm’ was spotted by Charles Saatchi and purchased for his collection.
To compliment the context and content of ‘Slump City’, SPACE will be conducting a tour of the artist enclave Hackney Wick, combining studio visits and tours of artists run spaces as part of CREATE 09, the annual arts festival hosted by the five host boroughs of the 2012 Olympic games and the Hackney Wicked festival.
In addition, ‘Slump Screenings’ will present an evening of artists films to accompany the exhibition.
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Laura Oldfield-Ford, Karen Russo & Tessa Farmer
6th - 26th June 2009
As the consequences of the global recession take effect, the regeneration of East London, traditional home of London’s largest artist community, has slowed and the promised Olympic legacy looks in doubt. It is within this context that SPACE presents ‘Slump City’, an exhibition presenting the work of three exciting emerging artists whose visionary and haunting work combines gothic fantasy, poetic social realism and psycho-geography to imagine the urban periphery.
Laura Oldfield Ford, recent graduate of the RCA and winner of the VABT award, had her first show at Marlborough Fine Art last Autumn, followed by exhibitions at Hales Gallery and Arnolfini in Bristol. For ‘Slump City’, Oldfield Ford is making a new piece, a large wall of A2 drawings which feed from her ongoing subjective exploration and psycho-geographic mapping of the neglected backwaters of the city. These relay a broken narrative centered on an East London that is being cleared and sanitised for the 2012 Olympic games.
Karen Russo is known internationally for her video, drawing and sculpture and the strange and disturbing source materials which she uses to transform the everyday into contemporary surreal and gothic imagery exploring romantic notions of the sublime. For ‘Slump City’ Russo presents a filmed excursion inside an urban sewage pipe system. Viewed through a small robot camera used to locate blockages, an ever-expanding system of sewer pipes is revealed, mapping the underbelly of our city.
Tessa Farmer’s recent practice has been inspired by her 2007 residency at London’s Natural History Museum, playing on a strong undercurrent of horror and abjection that has always existed as a counter-narrative to the Victorian tradition of naturalism to which Tessa Farmer’s work offers a redress. For ‘Slump City’ she will be presenting her stuffed and reawakened ‘road kill’ arranged into fantasy scenarios where insect fairy tormentors seek revenge for all their brethren once smothered in killing jars and pinned in display case trophies. Tessa Farmer’s work was included in the 2004 edition of the ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries’, where her installation ‘Swarm’ was spotted by Charles Saatchi and purchased for his collection.
To compliment the context and content of ‘Slump City’, SPACE will be conducting a tour of the artist enclave Hackney Wick, combining studio visits and tours of artists run spaces as part of CREATE 09, the annual arts festival hosted by the five host boroughs of the 2012 Olympic games and the Hackney Wicked festival.
In addition, ‘Slump Screenings’ will present an evening of artists films to accompany the exhibition.
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Contact
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Josie Faure Walker
0208 525 4330
www.spacestudios.org.uk
Josie Faure Walker
0208 525 4330
www.spacestudios.org.uk
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