Group exhibition
For 11 contemporary artists currently based at Sarabande’s studios in Haggerston, SUM is the culmination of their residency. Represented as an inviting house and lush garden, the exhibition is the quintessential allegory for their time spent together. Through collaboration and cohabitation, they have nurtured and grown their practices as well as their relationships with each other. Over the course of four weeks, the artists welcome the audience into their ‘home’ to see the exhibition and to experience takeovers, performances and family-style dinners.
A small, white ‘house’ structure and surrounding ‘garden’ will display works that reference either the domestic or nature. A woven entrance by Jia Xi Li will hang from the house’s frame, there will be a bed, hand-painted, embodying the relentless defiance of Iranian women by Laila Tara H, experimental, wet plate photographs by Kasia Wozniak and photo work exploring rhinoplasty in Iran by Shirin Fathi. It will also create a perch for six wearable crows to come to life through the performances of Isabel Castro Jung.
The ‘garden’ will reveal animals drawn and painted by Robert Cooper; tombstones sculpted by Taryn O’Reilly; sumptuous paintings by Fuchsia; a digital well, tucked in the grass, created by Zongbo Jiang; a table with a woven top of hair and leather by Anouska Samms; and a fountain that will gradually erode from the bacteria produced acid held inside it by Urte Janus.