Exhibition draws from the history of the gallery as a former hairdressers.
Coleman Project Space presents a solo exhibition of new site-specific works by Nic Sanderson.
Performance, sculpture installation, event archive, BASIN is a project of multiple parts that draws from the history of the gallery as a former hairdressers.
Sanderson finds many parallels between the worlds of art practice and hair design: from the performative, community and multi-practitioner aspects of the events we associate with them, to the tools and furniture used and the role of aesthetics in very different journeys of transformation.
For a limited time before the exhibition opens, the artist will stage a series of events that bring together hair professionals and willing participants in a performance involving a series of his sculptures. The exhibition itself is the presentation of these experiential ‘props’ in the main gallery – including the original salon mirrors, which Sanderson has sourced, borrowed and re-sited – and evidence of the event period in the shed space.
However functional or serviceable they may prove to be, these neo-grunge objects appear otherworldly in ways already understood through the multiple cultural lenses of art, anime, and music-video and film art-direction. Fabricated from cardboard clay and found materials such as wood, scrap metal, fabric and foams, they communicate an anthropomorphic sense of purpose mined from the surreal stylistic intersection of Conran, Tim Burton and immersive theatre.
While there is a playful darkness to these works that points to the inevitable decay of all things, the title, BASIN – a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin nod to the site and the exhibition thematic – also speaks of renewal, as a source of cleansing and sustenance. Sanderson talks about notions of repair and reuse when describing these works and a necessary economy of means, in every sense, whether mindful of thrift, finite resources or material concerns.
What will happen when humans meet objects? Hair may be cut, stories traded in-chair, metamorphoses completed, but for those who take part or witness the post-event spectacle, this is a ‘salon’ experience like no other.
Coleman Project Space, 94 Webster Road, Bermondsey, London, SE16 4DF.
Dates: 13 April – 5 May 2024
Times: Fri Sat Sun 12-6pm
Preview: Friday 12 April 6-9pm
