Queer Art Projects is delighted to present Galatea, which takes its name from the statue that transforms into a living woman in Greek mythology, in which six artists were commissioned to create a new performance piece based on and performed around a public statue in London. The performance videos are on show as part of The Every Woman Biennial in Copeland Gallery Peckham.
In these special events on July 7 and July 8 Galatea films will be shown between 6:30 pm to 7:45 pm and each screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the artists.
Galatea is produced and curated by Queer Art Projects in partnership with Every Woman Biennial and funded by Arts Council England.
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Ebun Sodipo - Atlantic Cruises: A Rest Stop, 2021, 21’24”
Ebun Sodipo’s performance “Atlantic Cruises: A Rest Stop”, is centered around the Queen Anne Statue at St Paul’s Churchyard.
As we roamed around the heart of empire we came across a possible story, one out of many, of an encounter between a Lascar sailor, drunk on rage, love, and the swill of 18th Century London, and a young statue, white and cool, node of an enormous tangle of history.
InXestuous Sisters- Enchanted by the failings that nature gave the female heart, 2021, 17’41”
InXestuous Sisters’ (Niya B & Giulia Casalini) performance “Enchanted by the failings that nature gave the female heart” is inspired by six statues in London that depict heterosexual couples.
One glorious Sunday morning, InXestuous Sisters decided to go out for a brisk walk around the city of London. They found numerous sculptures depicting man-woman couples, but none of them representing female love, friendship or companionship. Inspired by the Ancient Greek myth of Galatea, they decided to become temporary statues themselves. In bringing to life each statue’s female half, their creations propose a sisterly wholeness by means of doubling up its own image. The title of the piece is inspired by Ovid’s telling of the myth, in which Pygmalion, “offended by the failings that nature gave the female heart,” sculpted his partner-to-be Galatea out of ivory. InXestuous Sisters are the least offended (but rather enchanted) by the possibility of the female failings, which they enflesh into monuments that are yet to come.
“Mother of…” by Istanbul Queer Art Collective (Tuna Erdem and Seda Ergul), 2021, 10’21”
“A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft” in Newington Green, was called “the most polarising art work of 2020” by the Guardian. Always against binaries, be it gender or pole, Istanbul Queer Art Collective wanted to complicate matters and multiply points of view, by reading Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, together with Jeanette Winterson’s FranKissStein, at Newington Green, in front of the sculpture in question. The resulting video “Mother of…” is a combination of sound art, performance documentation and graphic text. “Mother of…” is an intentionally overwhelming video, with a bombardment of audiovisual information that forces you to choose “sides” arbitrarily and feel frustrated for having to do so.
Monument Walk I and DEVIL KING FOREVER LOVER by Izzy Yon, 2021, 6’00”
Monument Walk I (2021) is a performance by artist and ‘new world popstar’ Izzy Yon. On June 1st 2021 they walked to three historic monuments in London dressed as one of their multiple alter-egos, Devil King. The walk started at Guards Memorial outside the House of Guards, then Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square and culminated at Victoria Monument outside Buckingham Palace.
In Trafalgar Square Yon’s Devil King stood on the highest plinth of Nelson’s Column facing towards the National Gallery and a crowd of unexpecting members of the public. There they sang a guttural rendition of an old Eastern European folk song followed by a section of Freddie Mercury’s pop classic, Bohemian Rhapsody. DEVIL KING FOREVER LOVER (2021) is a short film by Izzy Yon which documents their prior performance Monument Walk I (2021) in the form of a music video.
from this place: HEALING PROCESS (a part of) by Sakeema Peng Crook, 2021, 4’44”
Sakeema Peng Crook’s movement performance and the video that was based on this performance which is entitled “from this place: HEALING PROCESS (a part of)” is around and about the Churchill Monument at Parliament Square that was recently brought back into the open after a year inside a protective box that rendered it invisible.
The artist’s only statement about the work is:
“I just want to say thank you to the trees”
Untitled by SERAFINE1369, 2021, 10’25”
SERAFINE1369’s performance is centered around Cleopatra’s Needle on the Victoria Embankment:
The performance attempts to establish a connection, a dialogue with an object through the devotional practice of dancing.
The obelisk is a monolith, a 200 tonne single piece of rock that has seen more sunrises than I can conceive of. I wonder how many died in the process of its creation, in the storm of its movement...
There is a time capsule inside the pedestal on which the obelisk is mounted, it contains images of the 12 most attractive ladies of England from the year 1878; What is the role of worship within our relationships? What, or who, do you worship? What do we want to remain of our time here?
Time makes me small, and yet I can touch this time through the stone - does this time touch back? Does it speak? And if I listen, what does it say?
The writing says that this rock was gift, whose is it to give the gift of time, of the labour of honouring something or someone now forgotten, or alive under a new name. Sun, Moon...gods assume new names and persist. Time and weather, movements of god.