Encounterculture

17 Oct-20 Oct 2024

PV 17 Oct 2024, 6-8pm

Overview

EncounterCulture an innovative, experimental project from London based sculpture collective Changeable Beast will take place through September and October 2024, culminating in a week long residency of collaborative making and second week exhibition at the APT Gallery, Deptford.

The project takes as its starting point an excerpt from Donna Haraway’s The Companion Species Manifesto –

“one cannot know the other or the self, but must ask in respect for all of time who and what are emerging in relationship”.

In the quote, Haraway seems to say the self exists in relationship to others and between others and is continually recreated through relationships. She writes specifically about dog/human relationships, but the work has wider implications for all human relationships - with each other, with other species, with nature itself and even in this cyborg age with technology.

Through sculptural/performance/fine art practices, Changeable Beast will explore this theme of interconnectedness, interdependence and mutual support, which suggests a radical opposition to the cult of individualism. They ask what is seen and created when we challenge the western view of man as pinnacle, master of the universe.

The definition of encounter infers an element of chance, of happenstance or the unknown. This could be of human-nature and as simple as a conversation, or non-human with an object, a place, an animal, an artwork etc....Encounter Culture aims to explore the circularity of the creative process and how one thing leads to another through our interactions.

The group will begin with time spent at Deptford market working together and with the environment to make new connections.  This day will act as inspiration for an initial piece of work created from cardboard and other market detritus. These sculptures will then be brought to the gallery to act as starting points for the residency and the new works that will be created in collaboration with each other, with no single author. The artists seek to challenge their practices and how art is made and make new connections with each other - to discover what is ‘emerging in relationship’.  During the residency, visitors will be able to see and discuss the activity taking place on Sunday 13 October.

The final week (17 - 20 October) will be an exhibition of documentation of working methods, and the final sculptural outcomes.