a solo exhibition from Giulia Fassone
Private View: Thursday 28th August 2025 17:00 - 19:00 (opening performance 18:00)
Opening Hours: Wednesday 27th - Sunday 31st August 2025 12:00 - 18:00
Closing Event: Talk with Strawberry Fields Collective: Sunday 31st August 2025 15:00-16:30
Location: Nunhead Cemetery Chapel
BOOKING IS NOT ESSENTIAL
This exhibition is part of the Summer series from the FLP x Friends of Nunhead Cemetery Exhibition Program 2025.
The works in Appetite form an ecosystem of grief where personal loss is inscribed within larger natural cycles. The organic and the inorganic, the dead and the living are part of a continuum of transformation and regeneration. By expanding the notion of life beyond individual human existence, the natural world can offer comfort and resonance. It might all be a matter of scale: how distinct really are the organic and the inorganic, the living and the dead, the sick and the healthy? Is it possible to sense the constant transfer of energy from one body to another, from atom to atom, from mineral to water, to flower, to bee, to honey, to us, to fire, to light, to air, and back to the sun?
In this exhibition, leaves have eyelashes and trees weep. Ribcages resemble butterflies and from sick ribs blossom strange flowers. Fresh dough rises on a woman’s chest, clouds come and go like spells of sorrow. Urns can carry both decay and fermentation. These works play with metaphor, idiomatic expressions and the Christian religious symbolism found in the cemetery, to hold space for every hue: sadness, anger, shame, regret, tenderness, acceptance, nourishment and perhaps, growth. The position of the works in the space evokes the nature of grief: simmering, bubbling, rippling and returning like waves — inviting visitors to move through as one moves through grief itself: not linearly, but through cycles.
The title ‘Appetite’ refers to a force that moves all things to arise and be eventually consumed. One may say life is appetite. And similarly, grief is seen here as a metabolic process of digestion and assimilation. If life has an appetite that devours us all, can we still find meaning and nourishment in our connection with nature?
Supplementary Events
OPENING PERFORMANCE
Thursday 28th August - Begins at 18:00
STRAWBERRY FIELDS COLLECTIVE - TALK
Sunday 31st August - 15:00 - 16:30
The Strawberry Fields Collective are a people’s collective based in Lewisham that stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine. On the final day of this exhibition, they will be delivering a short talk and discussion about stories of resilience and resistance in Gaza which all are welcome to join!
"Self Care" has become a hot phrase, but what does it mean as we witness a live streamed genocide for two years? Join Strawberr Fields Collective on the closing evening of Giulia Fassone's solo exhibit, to discuss together how to expand the idea of self care to strengthen grass roots organizing and community. This event is FREE, but please register so we know numbers. In lieu of ticket prices we are asking for donations to The Gaza Flour Fund, a mutual aid initiative set up by a member of the Collective and distributed by Daughters of the Land Project, details in the registration link: https://events.humanitix.com/care-and-community
Accessibility Notes
There are 3 small stone steps into the chapel and a ramp can be provided. The chapel is at the end of a gravel path and the stone floors can become slippery, especially in wet weather. This is an outdoor exhibition as there is no roof on the chapel, so please remember to bring weather appropriate apparel.
The nearest train station is Nunhead which does not have step free access. Buses 484, 78, P12 and 343 stop near the cemetery entrance.
About the Artist
Giulia Fassone (she/her) is a post-disciplinary artist who uses installation, sculpture, painting, textiles and performance. With a background in philosophy and art history, her practice is equally invested in concept and process. Her tactile, hybrid works present the human and the non-human as poles of a continuum, challenging established distinctions between the human/animal/plant/mineral, organic/inorganic, healthy/diseased, alive/dead. Using materials in different stages of transformation, she communicates ideas about death and renewal through the lens of alchemical cycles and non-linear, more-than-human time. These shape-shifting, fluid works seek to embody the radical interconnectedness of things, a ‘vibrant matter' which is both material and immaterial.
Giulia also works as a gardener and chef. These professions are integral to her practice, which often employs the materials and processes of gardening and cooking. Giulia also just started Ruderal Projects, an art collective and curatorial platform for radical discourses around ‘Nature’ and the ‘natural’.
INSTAGRAM: @giulia_fassone