Tenant of Culture: Soft Acid

8 Jul-18 Sep 2022

Overview

Tenant of Culture, the anonym for Dutch artist Hendrickje Schimmel (b. 1990, Arnhem, Netherlands), will realise an ambitious new site-specific installation for Camden Art Centre, her largest work to-date. The artist’s point of departure begins in the archives of the gallery, where she uncovered reference to the largely unrecognised mass labour of women in the laundry industry, in 19th Century Britain. 

The exhibition draws on and extends the artist’s long-standing exploration of consumer culture and the vast and problematic waste accumulated via the fashion industry. Repurposing discarded garments and accessories into new sculptural forms – alongside a voracious exploration of material possibilities – fabrics are bleached, boiled, dyed, twisted, torn and meticulously reassembled. The resulting works nod to former relics simultaneously desirable and monstrous, a reminder of the fickle cycle of trends and fashion, and the exploitative and often invisible economies of supply and demand. 

Tenant of Culture is the third recipient of the Camden Art Centre Emerging Artist Prize at Frieze.

The Camden Art Centre Emerging Art Prize at Frieze is generously supported by Georgina Townsley, Alexandra Economu and Noach Vander Beken, Nicola Blake, Simon and Carolyn Franks, Ronald and Sophie Sofer and Russell Tovey. With special thanks to Frieze, London, and Soft Opening, London. 

Artists

Press

Tenant of Culture: Soft Acid | Press Release
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