Open House

Are memories collectable? How can we collect an artist residency?

In a unique collision of past and present, artist residents from the last 10 years at Delfina Foundation are reflecting on their experiences in the house, and invite you to explore their personal and creative memories through a two day live programme and exhibition, Open House.

Featuring a series of commissioned artworks encompassing the digital, performative, gastronomical and sculptural, Open House fosters new lines of creative enquiry into the role of residency programmes in the UK, as well as the intersections between public and private in contemporary art today.

Open House is a partnership between Delfina Foundation and six curators from the Curating Contemporary Art MA Programme at the Royal College of Art, part of Graduate Projects 2017. The exhibition forms part of Delfina Foundation’s Collecting as Practice thematic programme.

Timed events on the programme are limited capacity and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Participating Artists

Former residents: Manal Al Dowayan, Mudar Alhaggi, Ahmed Badry Aly, Kathrin Böhm, Leone Contini, Srajana Kaikini, Hala Muhanna, Judy Price, Alessandra Saviotti, and Laura Wilson

Curators

Kerry Campbell, Cecilia Giurgevich, Zena Khan, Nicholas Osborne, Linda Rocco, and Elizabeth Thornhill

Programme

The exhibition is open from 12:00–18:00 Saturday and Sunday with timed events as follows.

SATURDAY

12.00–15.00: Laura Wilson, Rolling, 2017
Laura Wilson’s past investigations into the physicality of dough as a live material expands within the house, engaging a multiplicity of moving bodies in this durational performance.

13.00–13:30: Mudar Alhaggi, Mind The Gap, 2017
In this reading via live feed, from his current home in Berlin Alhaggi reflects on the question: why have I not forgotten my time at Delfina Foundation? Despite not recalling every detail of his 6 weeks at Delfina Foundation Alhaggi explores the memories we hold on to, using his personal experiences of forgetting places, face and experiences from his native Syria.

16.00-16.40: Kathrin Böhm and Rosalie Schweiker: KEEP IT SOCIAL _ MAKE IT POLITICAL
Taking Delfina Foundation residency lunches as a starting point, Kathrin Böhm will address the dilemma of The Social Front through a performative lecture, where convivial sociality is easily read as the main expression and function of art (or an arts organisation), and cultural, political and emancipatory practices are easily left in the background. Böhm will use visuals and slogans produced during her Delfina Residency alongside material from the Keep It Complex – Make it Clear Campaign she cofounded with Rosalie Schweiker in response to the UK’s Leave Vote and a new urgency for claiming the social in art as political.

16.40–18.00: Kathrin Böhm: Company Drinks
Kathrin Böhm’s talk will be followed by Company Drinks, an arts project and community drinks enterprise that links east London’s history of “going picking” with a full drinks production cycle: from picking to bottling, branding to trading and reinvesting. Join us and try a soda or cordial made with fruit, flowers and herbs picked by local hop-pickers from the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.

SUNDAY

13:00–17:00: Open Exchanges
Join the six RCA curators as they engage with artists, curators, dealers and collectors in reflective discussions on the values of residencies and role of collections in the contemporary art world. These half hour conversations will occupy various parts of the house throughout the day.

From 15.00: Leone Contini, Cezar’s Gumbo, 2017
We invite you to share a special homemade soup cooked by Leone Contini, from a recipe passed through the family of Delfina Foundation director Aaron Cezar.