Artists are thieves, pricking from the language the city offers and the many worlds that collide within it. Finding the profundity that undulates beneath its surface, an urban mythology plays out.
Disrupting Mythologies returns with a multidisciplinary exhibition that sees the collective team up with SET to occupy a repurposed office block. The Woolwich space will play host to 18 mixed-media artists, spanning painting, performance, sculpture, photography and print.
Leveraging both visual art and physical expression, artists and performers use the platform to highlight the urgency of rethinking and reimagining our reality. Threading together unique narratives, the group is bound by the kindred nature of mythologising. Caught in the revolving door of the capitol, dynamic reflections from each artist offer complexity, deep observation, and humour.
In our field of vision, the city offers a constant torrent of imagery and architecture. This results in many unique visions, and this eclecticism defines the experience of the show. The shared beliefs surrounding verbal and visual narratives provide meaning, and these motifs persist in the perplexing urban environment. Even within the steel, and glass, and sepia tones of the city, there is a spirit which rails against the expected and questions the restrictions of conformity. Built up of stimulating contrasts, each piece in the exhibition establishes its own world. Delving into the inner being, the work becomes an antagonistic blip in the corporate labyrinths, unbridled quests for productivity, mass surveillance, and divided systems. The city may be punctuated with square blocks, yet the collective dares to dream, challenging the urban landscapes; seemingly fixed materiality. By ransacking possibilities from the slits in between and the light offered by the lampposts, the swarming, listless daily motion, punctured window panes or continuous droning soundtrack. Ultimately, finding ways to illustrate deeper readings, legends, or possibilities in what the metropolis offers.
Drifting avidly between the bizarre and absurdity of modern life, this is a lively frenzy of ideas and reflections, providing the ability to dissociate from the immediacy of reality. The spectacularly diverse show moves beyond critiques: a rude, jolting awakening plays out.
Snatching from past mythologies, the multiple creative realms seek to allow the highly inquisitive to be momentarily immersed; in a narrative, a moment in time, or meditation on the state of the world. In this scenario, these works do not just reflect on society’s concerns, but also provide a lens on possibility or difference.
Participating artists: James Lang (Set Woolwich member); Estelle Simpson (Set Woolwich member); Ellis Berwick (Hardess Studios member); Matt Graysmith (Set Woolwich member); Marta Paula (Hardess Studio member); Laura Crosbie (Set Woolwich member); Linghui Ng (Set Woolwich member); James Reynolds (RCA Painting graduate); Will McLucas (ASP member); Gabe Duarte (Set Woolwich member); Kenneth Feinstein (tutor, Leeds University); Vita Maj Lerche (Set Woolwich member); Jack Hilton (Set Woolwich member); Cristina Cinotto (Set Woolwich member); Maria Gorodeckaya (Set Woolwich member); Rosa Varlow(CSM graduate); Leah Wallace; Dien Berziga (Thamesside Studio member).
Set Woolwich, Beresford Street, SE18 6BU. 28th September – 28th October
