PEER in partnership with Acme presents Curved Space, a group exhibition including artists Holly Buckle, Kristīne Daukšte, Lisa-Marie Harris and Bryan Giuseppi Rodriguez Cambana. This exhibition marks the seventh iteration of Acme and PEER’s partnership that supports the work of early-career artists. The artists included in Curved Space have recently participated in a yearlong studio residency at Acme’s Warton House, London, in 2022. The partnership provides recently graduated artists access to studio space, mentorship and space to develop and exhibit their work. This year PEER are excited to be working with four artists, each presenting new work developed during the residency.
The title of this exhibition refers to the question of entry to, and the limitations of, movement within social spaces; a concern that each of the artist’s works address in some way. It also serves as a reference to their shared time in the Warton House studio, which itself has an exposed curvature.
Holly Buckle (Adrian Carruthers Award, 2021/22) works across a wide range of media, including audio, installation, publication, photography, and textiles. The core concern of their practice is centred on queer bodies, using research, participation, and performance to examine queer pasts, look to the future and take action today. Collectivity is a strong theme within Buckle’s work and for their exhibition at PEER, they will be presenting a project produced in collaboration with members of The Outside Project, an LGBTIQ+ community centre and domestic abuse refuge, based in London. Consisting of tapestry, audio work and a publication, this work reflects on the collective experiences of The Outside Project’s members, particularly in relation to the old fire station building in Farringdon, which the group have recently vacated and the importance of having a safe space to gather.
Kristīne Daukšte (Helen Scott Lidgett Award, 2021/22) explores our relation to space during moments of conflict, whether that be conflict with oneself, others, cultures, social norms, or space itself. She is interested in how human bodies experience, relate, and react to space and the objects within it. Daukšte’s practice creates semi-fictional spaces by reimagining objects through the deconstruction of their materiality. For her presentation at PEER Daukšte has created a new installation that will encourage viewers to question one's own attitudes to space and body. The work will aim to create an environment that supports reflection on our own connection to actual and theoretical layers within objects and concepts in society.
Lisa-Marie Harris (Helen Scott Lidgett Award, 2021/22) works across sculptural installation, canvas, film and publishing, to address dehumanisation by positioning the body as a thing. She pursues this through an objectification, capitalistic extraction, and commoditisation of body parts, sensations, and emotional experiences. Harris’s work is informed by a personal history of motherhood and reproduction; by Trinidadian culture, spirituality and ecology; and by migration. By breaking apart and reconstituting the body in her work, Harris frames the body as a contested space that is prized, coveted, and sought to be owned. For her presentation at PEER, Harris will be showing new work developed in response to a recent trip across the eroded back-roads of Trinidad's Central wetlands.
Bryan Giuseppi Rodriguez Cambana (Goldsmiths MFA award, 2021/22) uses video installation, film, and performance to reflect on the theatrics that could interpret, process, and decipher Afro-diasporic and indigenous histories. Using personal narratives and fluid frameworks of communities, he stages actions within fabricated environments. Often grounded in the everyday while addressing issues of displacement, his work questions themes such as – authenticity and commodification of Black and indigenous people. Building on his ongoing interest in communities, Rodriguez Cambana will present a new video installation developed in collaboration with local performers and Hoxton Hall gesturing to migrant communities’ experiences of ‘world-building’.
