Challenging Text-Based Ceramic Installation at Departure 

Have You Ever Bartered Before?

Following a successful Attic Arts residency at the Romanian Cultural Institute Peter Szabo returns to London for his first solo show at Departure. His installation “Have You Ever Bartered Before?” is a text-based work, which reflects poetically on the present context of living. In aiming to propose a strategy for individual defense, it is both a starting point and an opportunity. It is also a bit like a puzzle, where a few pieces are sufficient to build a fragment, but where there is no obligation to complete the whole structure. In fact, it is an open structure with 23 ‘gates,’ from which viewers are invited to chose their point of entry and begin their journey: “Everything is important,” “There is no difference,” “Surviving is nice,” “Have you EVER bartered before?” In reading and making connections between the various texts the viewer participates in the creation of an additional layer to the work.