//

07.09.2018 to 13.09.2018
The Cookhouse Gallery, Chelsea College of Arts, London
Curated by MA Curating and Collections 2017-18

Artists: Erica Beckman, Zach Blas, Ami Clarke, Joey Holder, Puck Verkade, Osías Yanov

Catalogue which works as extension of the exhibition

MA Curating and Collections 2017/18 is pleased to present our final curated show, //. This exhibition aims to dismantle the established boundary conditions of gender, race and class within our current colonialist, capitalist and gendered economies. Featuring works by Ericka Beckman, Puck Verkade and Osías Yanov that challenge the system, the grid and ways of classifying which delineates boundaries within our society. In the realm of the exhibition, the traditional divisions between human and animal, organism and machine, and the physical and non-physical are blurred in order to address a myriad of ways in which technology relates to human nature and the agency of the body.

// is informed by Donna Haraway’s 1984 essay, A Cyborg Manifesto. The cyborg is used as a fictional and metaphorical concept for subverting these boundary conditions. Haraway proposes a mythic answer to the problems we are currently facing. Through this fictional method, this exhibition guides us through the breakdown of limiting identity constructs, towards a new social structure as a call to arms for the future.

As a support to our concept, aiming to subvert the traditional book and catalogue format, a publication is used as an extension of our exhibition. It includes dialogues between the curators and artists set within a fictional realm, and artists’ response to our curatorial strategy and exhibition concept. With a foreword written by Lynton Talbot, contributors include Ericka Beckman, Zach Blas, Ami Clarke, Joey Holder, and Osías Yanov.

Two public programmes will also be held in correlation with our exhibition. A performance included in Osías Yanov’s Orphan Dance (2018), taking place on the night of our private view and a special screening of Zach Blas’ film Jubilee 2033 (2017) on 13 September, 2018.

Special thanks to:
CCW Print Services
Gasworks - Osías Yanov, Orphan Dance commissioned and produced by Gasworks
MA Curating and Collections: Dr. David Dibosa, Cherie Silver, Donald Smith and Lynton Talbot

Image credits: Evie Knighton