Re-Collections

As part of the public programme for Collecting as Practice, curated by Rose Lejeune, join us for an ‘open studios’ evening of performances, presentations and experiments developed by the current artists-in-residence and guests.

From 7.00pm, there will be drinks and durational presentations by Joshua Lue Chee Kong and Wok the Rock. Developed through his residency, Lue Chee Kong’s performance offers speculative histories linking materials found while mud-larking on the Thames to contemporary artists in the Caribbean. The first 50 audience members will have the chance to own a fragment of this history accompanied by letter pressed certificates.

Meanwhile, Wok the Rock invites you to explore the meaning of the oft-quoted Delfina Entrecanales’ “I don’t collect art, I collect artists” in a data-drive future. This project investigates a hypothetical technical architecture to sit behind Delfina’s conceptual claim. How do we collect artists? How do we share such a collection? How much time and money would we need to spend on archiving to make it possible?

At 7.30pm, Geumhyung Jeong presents Product Review: Human-Shaped Punching Bag PRO2500 – her experience with a punching bag she bought some years ago. Geumhyung collects and animates objects that relate to, extend and support the human body; her collection of these objects will be exhibited at Delfina Foundation in the autumn with a new performative element – more to be announced soon.

At 8.15pm, artist-in-residence Deyson Gilbert with collaborators Avenir Institute (Denis Maksimov & Timo Tuominen), Gabriel Francisco Lemos and Tom N present The Bitter Plums of Chelsea Manning: An Opera in Three Acts. Two panellists images on a screen and talk about the contradictory parts of an amputated body. A singer struggles to remember an unknown hymn. In the backstage, an audio technician controls a radio while a cameraman thinks about Ivanka Trump. A libretto handed to the audience quotes Richard Wagner: “Joy is not in things: it is in us”.