Curatorial Collective | RCA SOAH Postgraduate Exhibition | RCA Battersea, 15 Howie Street 1F Room 5
Using penombra as our guiding force and curatorial methodology, Jane co-established penombra with Beverley Harrison, Charles (Zihao) Lyu, Daisy Magnusson, Ecem Meric, Shawn (Yuchen) Xie, and Vittoria Ciaraldi to acknowledge the blend of visibilities the practitioners bring to our collaborative endeavors.
penombra enthusiastically explores and creates liminal spaces inside and outside institutional walls to expand boundaries and hierarchical confines, unfolding diverse perspectives and narratives that are both local and global. We embrace transnational mediation in order to explore what lies beyond visibilities. We query the advantages and disadvantages of occupying spaces of invisibility and visibility and are guided by our central question: what happens when we opt into a temporary sharing of invisibility?
In a thematic encounter, we present blended visibilities, traversing the spaces in between, navigating the material and immaterial, opacity and translucency. Our aim is to create, host, and nurture artistic experiences, inviting individuals to actively participate, cultivate empathetic connections, and foster new modes of inclusive interaction – a refuge.
EVENTS
June 19-23 Royal College of Art School of Arts and Humanities Postgraduate Exhibition
June 19 5:10-5:20pm VIP Preview Performance | 7:10-7:20pm Private View Performance
June 20-23 12-6pm Public Exhibition
June 23 1:10-1:20pm Public Performance with violinist Kasia Zimińska
penombra.cargo.site (Active until Aug 2024)
VALUES
THIRD SPACE: participatory | collaborative | experiential | experimental | liberatory | fluid
PROCESS: responsive | equitable | restorative | mindful | organic | honest
CARE: healing | hospitality | adaptability | openness | intentionality | inclusivity
Our values infuse our curatorial spaces – spaces that house us, spaces we traverse in communion with art and others, and that foster experience and community. A display’s spatial ethos is informed by these values that should never exist merely as words but instead as promises, always ensuring action and genuine commitment.
We create an encounter that reflects our processes as well as our commitments. An encounter that welcomes warmth, inquiry, and new ways of being with one another. A third space that centers hospitality, and blurs the distinctions between host and hosted. Our spaces honor, protect and observe these expansive relationships and exchanges.
HOW WE WORK
We develop an appreciation and understanding of art’s multiple roles, reflecting and affecting how people relate critically and creatively in their lives.
We prompt the criticism and generation of knowledge through discourse and debate, noting parallels and differences in contemporary practices.
We care about the changing character of art and its relationship to social issues and to make the audience a participant in the creation of contemporary art.
We preserve the originality of different cultures despite language systems, lack of translation, cultural alienation, the transition between different time zones, the sense of belonging, or the tribulations of identity perception.
We reproduce an individual’s unique nostalgic emotional experience to traverse, collect, and retrace every lost and gained moment in life.
ABOUT THE WORK
PUBLIC PERFORMANCE
Featured Artists:
Gabriel Prokofiev is a Russian composer born and raised in London, who has crafted an extensive repertoire comprising orchestral and chamber pieces, including seven concertos, three of which feature turntables.
Gabriel often collaborates with artists from different genres, resulting in a dynamic intersection of classical and contemporary music. Beyond his musical practice, Gabriel also works as an events curator, producer, and he is the founder of the ambitious Nonclassical record label, showcasing contemporary classical music outside of traditional spaces such as East London nightclubs and warehouses.
For our project displayed at RCA Battersea on 19-23 June 2024, Gabriel is presenting an immersive and interactive re-imagining of his composition: HOWL! – II – Separation and IV – Pulse.
Entering the space, the public will sonically experience their place in a modern, transnational digital sonic realm where the sound world will evolve, triggered by the audience’s actions, and evoke related emotions (fear, hope, isolation, empathy, disorientation). It gives contemporary sonic experiences that reflect the confusion we feel in contemporary society, torn between identities and ideologies, as he takes samples from social uprisings and portrays those emotions with his sonic elements.
He will be performing live three times during the exhibition: the 19th of June, 5:10-5:20pm (VIP), 7:10-7:20pm (PV), and the 23rd of June, 1:10-1:20pm (Public, with a violinist Kasia Zimińska).
Curatorial Team:
Beverley Harrison, Charles (Zihao) Lyu, Daisy Magnusson, Ecem Meric, Shawn (Yuchen) Xie, and Vittoria Ciaraldi
Media:
Participants:
Sound assistant: Gilad Barabi
Respondents to an online questionnaire: anonymous, anonymous, anonymous, anonymous, Cha Dong Seob, Mimi, anonymous, anonymous, anonymous, anonymous, anonymous, Cecilia, Soonho Kim, TH Lee, Jay, @bae_writer, anonymous, Prefer not to say, anonymous, anonymous, Isa, Jane Doe 958
Design: Abi Wright
Photos and videos: @frankshiii
Jane Lee 