Relish
Curated by: Alice Qianhui Sun, Siobhán Lynch
Artists:
Beverley Duckworth, Clara Hastrup, Zeus Li, Ningyue Qian, Laiba Raja
Beverley Duckworth, Clara Hastrup, Zeus Li, Ningyue Qian, Laiba Raja
Exhibition addition:
Re-serve by STILT Collab: Tim Aubury and Siobhán Lynch | Writing by Kati Cramp
Re-serve by STILT Collab: Tim Aubury and Siobhán Lynch | Writing by Kati Cramp
Exhibition Dates:
16–20 April, open daily from 12:00-16:00 Private View: 16 April, 17:00- 20:00
16–20 April, open daily from 12:00-16:00 Private View: 16 April, 17:00- 20:00
The juices of the earth ferment under the influence of the sun, unconsciously rising to the tops of plants. I suppose that in the course of repeated fermentation, these juices ebb and flow within those longitudinal channels, as though they were bubbling in the midst of them [...].
Montesquieu, Observations sur l'histoire naturelle (1721)
Montesquieu, Observations sur l'histoire naturelle (1721)
Relish is a multi-sensory exhibition that brings together five international female artists with an additional installation by STILT Collab and critical writing by Kati Cramp. The exhibition opens at BOTH Gallery, 323 Archway Road, N6 5AA, and is on view until 20 April 2025.
Based on the concept of Fermentation, Relish evokes a sense of ecological imaginaries, slowness, displacement, interconnectedness, and transformation. From featuring time-based installations to serving fermented foods during the opening, the exhibition creates an immersive environment where growth and decay mingle, reflecting the shared gathering spaces and dialogues that fermentation so often facilitates. Through sculpture, performance, and living installations, the artists engage with the metaphors, materialities, and cultural practices of fermentation, encouraging us to reflect on how change—at once gentle and radical—unfolds.
Through the lens of humour and a language of the absurd, Clara Hastrup’s Rice Cake O’clock invites audiences to enter a different time zone. Her series of instant sculptures (The Perishable Sculptures) explores a higher dimension of consciousness with our surroundings. Time and care are important in Beverley Duckworth’s practice. Infusion centres on the afterlife of the discarded, using the poetic actions of plants to address precarious issues facing humanity. Beginning with seeding to branches and trunk, Zeus Li combines found wood with delicate ceramic castings of Bodhisattva, blurring the boundary between organic and inorganic materials while expanding and recontextualising with an ambiguous open ending. Also working with ceramics, Ningyue Qian carries the culinary culture of her hometown, Ningbo, China. For her onsite sculpture, dough and sugar become a critical medium to constantly negotiate affective space beneath the narrative of the myth of modernity. Moving between China and Pakistan, Laiba Raja uses her writing and performance to transport audiences back to Lahore with a jar of fermented pickles, exploring grief as a slow decomposition—a fermenting of memory and remembering.
STILT collab is working with our concept by producing an instrument which extends our offering of literal fermented food. The copper sculpture employs interaction and time as ingredients - through the process of being served Kimchi during the private view, visitors will slowly dismantle the piece itself and, therefore, change the rhythm of the work. You are invited to listen to the strumming of the ergonomically designed plates, which fit curved in the palm of your hand.