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Abbas Zahedi, Rose & STEMM, An Alternative Map of the Universe installation view (2019) Guest Projects. Image by Katarzyna Perlak.

Abbas Zahedi, Rose & STEMM, An Alternative Map of the Universe installation view (2019) Guest Projects. Image by Katarzyna Perlak.

Departing from Niccolò Moronato’s body of work Firmament, which looks at stars and constellations from the alternative perspective of a planet 40 light years away from us, An Alternative Map of the Universe was a collaborative effort to bring together artists who use mapping as a way of responding to current realities or imagining new ones for the future.

An Alternative Map of the Universe exhibition graphic. Designed by Marcelo Vendramel
An Alternative Map of the Universe installation view (2019) Guest Projects. Image by Katarzyna Perlak.
Abbas Zahedi & Niccolo Moronato, An Alternative Map of the Universe installation view (2019) Guest Projects. Image by Katarzyna Perlak.
Abbas Zahedi, Rose & STEMM for An Alternative Map of the Universe (2019)
Abbas Zahedi, Rose & STEMM for An Alternative Map of the Universe (2019)
Ewan Atkinson, Mr. ______ presents: Starman In Theory, part 3. A living-room slide lecture (re-enacted) for An Alternative Map of the Universe (2019) Guest Projects. Image by Katarzyna Perlak.
Katarzyna Perlak, Niołam Ja Se Kochaneczke (2016) screening for An Alternative Map of the Universe (2019) Guest Projects. Image by Katarzyna Perlak.
An Alternative Map of the Universe public discussion event (2019) Guest Projects. Image by Katarzyna Perlak.
The Star Survey by Niccolò Moronato for An Alternative Map of the Universe (2019) Guest Projects. Image by Katarzyna Perlak.
Paul O'Kane & Emre Kazim in conversation, An Alternative Map of the Universe public programme (2019) Guest Projects. Image by Katarzyna Perlak.

PROGRAMME

Throughout the duration of the exhibition, Ewan Atkinson presented a new projection work titled Mr. ______ presents: Starman In Theory, part 3. A living-room slide lecture (re-enacted) and Niccolò Moronato displayed a series of works on paper from his Firmament series. Traces were left throughout the space by the other participating artists.

Monday 28 October  

6pm – Performance by Abbas Zahedi – ‘Rose & STEMM‘ (2019)
Rose & STEMM builds on the ideas and research explored in Zahedi’s previous works ROSE WATER (2018) and MANNA from below (2017); this will involve the performance of grieving rites upon the gallery space, as a way of laying to rest the analytic and categorical biases, which are so often used to exclude diasporic bodies of praxis and flesh.

7pm – ‘Dressing’ Live work by Niklas Gustafson (2019)
Dressing ignores the distinction between, say, a Ferrari and a sticker and revels in the freedom and challenges that might bring.

8pm – Talk: ‘Is this space real?’ with Abbas Zahedi, Niklas Gustafson, Niccolò Moronato, moderated by Jessica Taylor

 

Tuesday 29 October

6 – 7 pm – Film screenings

Larry Achiampong – ‘Relic 1′ (2017)
Forming part of Achiampong’s multi-disciplinary project Relic Traveller: Phase 1, this short film features a Relic Traveller apparating sites across a seemingly desperate United Kingdom. Uncovering fragments of audible data presenting clue-like testimonies to a forgotten Empire, the Relic Traveller soon finds themselves in an atmosphere that simultaneously delivers poetic moments of the sublime met with increasingly harrowing claustrophobia and tales of trauma. Thus resulting in a familiar feeling of otherness, we are invited on a journey that embodies hysteria.

Katarzyna Perlak – ‘Niołam Ja Se Kochaneczke‘ (2016)
Niołam Ja Se Kochaneczke explores potentialities of queer utopias, while looking at the relationship between history, ‘national values’ and power structures. Through the work Perlak revisited Eastern European folk traditions and whilst employing feminist and queer reading she encourages the viewer to consider and experience history as a discourse made out of multiple, overlapping and contesting narratives rather than a single, fixed entity.

Versia Harris – ‘I Don’t Want To Be An Emperor. That’s Not My Business’ (2019)
This work is about how oppression and coercion can be hidden in idealistic rhetoric or conversely how idealistic action threatens the abilities of those in power to oppress and coerce. The imagery is footage of a physical landscape scene built by the artist, presenting a seemingly idealistic society enjoying a day that commemorates “The Pelican.” The audio is a collection of political speeches by dictators who have caused mass suffering and political heroes who, because of their idealistic values, have been assassinated.

Pilar Quinteros – ‘Cementerio Indio’ (2015)
Quinteros investigates the common procedure followed and options available to those who find archaeological sites like the one discovered near her building in 2014 during the demolition of an old house to accommodate a new metro line in Santiago, Chile. To respond to this act, Quinteros builds a reproduction of the house to create a space that people could enter to watch the film’s documentation of the demolition, subsequent discovery of the bodies, interviews with those involved, followed by footage of the construction of the cardboard house by the artist.

 

Wednesday 30 October

5:30pm – Workshop: The Star Survey by Niccolò Moronato

7pm – Talk: ‘Technologies of Togetherness’ with Paul O’Kane and Emre Kazim