Join Leah Clements for an online studio visit exploring her practice. In conversation with Gavin Wade, Leah will talk about what she is working on now and ideas leading up to her exhibition at Eastside Projects in May.
Leah is currently developing work on The Siren of the Deep, a term used in diving communities to describe an overwhelming pull to stay on the bottom of the ocean in a state of awe, and never come back up. For her exhibition at Eastside Projects, she’ll be looking into diving, astronauts/cosmonauts, come-downs, and other experiences of bliss and the subsequent return to Earth.
Studio Visits offer an opportunity to gain an insight into the working practices of artists and an early introduction to work you will be able to see in the gallery in the future. Listen, watch and ask questions as artists, talk about ideas they are developing, what they are making and how they are making it.
Leah Clements is an artist based in London whose practice spans film, performance, writing, installation, and other media. Her work is concerned with the relationship between the psychological, emotional, and physical, often through personal accounts of unusual or hard-to-articulate experiences. Her work also focuses on sickness/cripness/disability in art, in critical and practical ways.
Leah is currently an artist in residence at Serpentine Galleries. Recent commissions include (2020): ‘Hyperbaric’, original performance as part of ‘Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy’, Somerset House Studios, with a second iteration commissioned by Rupert at the Artists’ Association Gallery, Vilnius; ‘Other Rooms’, group exhibition, Rupert, Vilnius (artist and co-curator), ‘Diagnosis’, written text, Chisenhale Gallery; ‘A sort of ‘no’ feeling’, La Casa Encendida, Madrid. (2019): ‘ON EDGE: Living in an Age of Anxiety’, Science Gallery London; ‘Adam Reynolds Memorial Bursary Exhibition’, Baltic39, Newcastle; ‘On Allyship’, ICA, London; ‘Beyond the Perfect Image’, Wellcome Collection, London; ‘Still Here’, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius. (2018): Artist residency, Wysing Arts Centre; ‘I never promised you a rose garden’ Matèria, Palermo; On Cripping ICA, London; Artist residency, Rupert, Vilnius; ‘Skin of the Eye Act II’, Vermilion Sands, Copenhagen. (2017): HereNow Art+Technology Residency, Space, London. (2016): ‘we felt the presence of someone else’, Jupiter Woods, London. (2015): ‘ Beside’, live work, Chisenhale Gallery; ‘you promised me poems’ solo show, Vitrine, London.
In March 2019, Leah launched Access Docs for Artists: an online resource made in collaboration with Lizzy Rose and Alice Hattrick to help disabled artists create and use access documents.
If you didn’t manage to catch the live stream, a recording with closed captions is available below.
