This event was an afternoon of artists talks and conversation exploring approaches to performance and making work for a live experience.
Libita Clayton, Nicola Singh and Lady Skollie each introduced their individual process for making art that cross form and location often spilling out of the gallery and collaborating with other people. We heard about how histories, touch and the body politic weave between the artists’ work, and explore the traces they have left in the gallery following performances the night before as part of This is the Gallery and the Gallery is Many Things X.
The talks were followed by a discussion chaired by Eastside Projects’ Director Gavin Wade.
Libita Clayton (b. 1987. Lives and works in Bristol) is a British-Namibian artist who generates performances, programmes events and sets up discursive situations, often working in partnership with DIY broadcasting / publishing cultures and collectives. Recent exhibitions and performances include: ‘4717’, RCA/LUX, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, London; ‘Memento Mori’, Kalashnikovv 3.0, Johannesburg, (all 2018); ‘DEBUNK’, Arnolfini, Bristol; ‘Going Along Without a Body’, Iklectik, London; ‘History Lessons’: Fluid Records, South London Gallery, Iniva, London; ‘Lexis Over Land – Towards a Feminist Geography’, Tremenheere Sculpture Gallery, Cornwall; ‘Diaspora Pavilion’, 57th Venice Biennale; (all 2017); ‘Gal-Dem WOC friday late’, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; ‘Beyond words’, Book Works, Central Library, Hull; and ‘Hard Copy, Home.alone’, Clermont – Ferrand (all 2016).
Lady Skollie (b. 1987, Cape Town. Lives and works in Johannesburg) uses ink, watercolour and crayon to defy taboos and talk openly about issues of sex, pleasure, consent, human connection, violence, and abuse. Recent international solo exhibitions include ‘Lust Politics’, Tyburn Gallery, London (2017), ‘Fire with Fire’, solo project at FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa (2017), and ‘Mating Dance’, solo project at AKAA Art Fair, Paris, France (2017). Recent group exhibitions include ‘Close: Proximity, Intimacy, Tension’, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, and ‘Right at the Equator’, Depart Foundation, Malibu, CA, USA (2018). She was also included in the 2018 edition of OkayAfrica’s ‘100 Women’, an annual list which honours women across 10 different fields for their achievements and influence.
Nicola Singh (b. 1986. Lives and works in Newcastle) recently completed a practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Northumbria University. Her practice is rooted in performance and is made in response to contexts of location and place, encounter and dialogue, feelings and chance. She continues to find ways of writing via performance and through experiments in pedagogy and is interested in the organisation of language around the body and in relation to the voice. Nicola has performed and exhibited at venues nationally and internationally, including Glasgow Film Theatre of LUX and LUX Scotland, 2017, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art – BALTIC 39, Newcastle, 2017, and New Art Centre Boston, USA, 2016. Forthcoming work includes a solo show at Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury, 2018.
