Babel

About

BABEL

A group show featuring young emerging Artists from locations scattered across the globe

July 31st - August 12th

PV Wednesday July 31st, 6-9pm

In Biblical literature the Babylonians wanted to make a name for themselves and strive for such greatness that they set to build a city and a tower so mighty that its top would reach the heavens. God disrupted this work by confusing the languages of the people building it, no longer able to understand each other the city was never completed and the people set to inhabit it were scattered across the face of the earth. This narrative is used as an origin story to explain multiplicity of languages, diversity of culture and multiculturalism, whereby Babel is seen as the cradle of civilisation. 

This scattering, dislocation and confusion experienced by these people is the concept for our group show, Babel. Today, division is still happening, and it is used by the powers that be to segregate us and create otherness. We want to refer to the current social and political climate as an idea of Babel, something that attempts to divide us, but by bringing together the distinct and separate voices of the artists in our show we hope to highlight that difference is to be celebrated as we communicate with each other and our communities using the language of Art. We wanted our exhibiting Artists to respond to this sense of dislocation and social and political disembodiment that we as young emerging Artists are all faced with. This show is not about emphasising difference but revelling in it. Rejecting the homogeneity of systemic societal propositions through embracing the diversity, multiculturalism and global interconnectivity of our Artists. Who will be navigating this subject using the diversity of their Art forms and practices, with approaches ranging from sculpture, installation, digital imagery and video.

We celebrate and revel in this difference, as it makes us better, through teaching us what we don’t know, showing us things we haven’t experienced before, what we are not used to and the attempts to find harmony amongst that. We hope that you too can celebrate in these notions as you experience Babel with us.

The participating Artists:

Maria Mahfooz

Hugo Hutchins

Sara Gulamali

Natalie Moutrey

Marcus Watkinson

Grace Black

Freya McLean

Samantha Watson

Jannat Hussain

Marcus Nelson

Rhys Laird

Muslim Sisterhood

Curated by Maria Mahfooz and Hugo Hutchins