Caged Bird Sings

About

Bare/not Projects are first-time curators from Central St Martins. Our debut show - Caged Bird Sings at The Crypt Gallery - is a group project with 21 artists, sculptors, film-makers and photographers who have an open brief to deconstruct and challenge ideas of restriction. These artworks confront the illusion that we alone control our lives; an antidote to the media's influence on our perceived autonomy; where liberated individuals are praised whilst stereotypes, moral panics, religious beliefs, political ideologies and sexist or racist perceptions are perpetuated. With themes ranging from immigration and cultural identity to sex trafficking and claustrophobia we want to explore the wider issues surrounding restriction. - Is security, which undermines liberty in the name of protection, desirable? - Is what we feel as an act of freedom lived as an act of violence by someone else? - Are these binds inevitable or self-imposed by our collective or personal conscience? - Can there be a world with ‘no conformities, no clichés, myths or anything which is given or dictated; where it is possible to eschew conflict because everyone is allowed to be different' as defined by anthropologist Roland Barthes? - Is freedom really the ultimate goal? We've joined forces with charities Stop the Traffik and the Anti-Slavery Organisation, and will be holding a symposium in the Crypt on 17 April to investigate our theme and talk about the legacy of restriction and censorship in art history. Visit http://barenot.wordpress.com for more information or follow us on Twitter (@barenot) and Facebook. Private View — 15 April, at The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras Church, Euston Road, London NW1 2BA; from 6 to 9pm, with drinks, a DJ and a performance by artist Taciana Coimbra. The gallery then runs from 12:30 to 6pm until 20 April Featured artists — James Roper, Klarita Pandolfi, Eoghan Deane, Antonio Pagani, Dorothy Yoon, Reme Campos, Jo Young, Paul Dawes, Kika Nicolela, Hester Jones, Stella O, Daisy McMullan, Sarah Misselbrook, Andrew Graves-Johnston, Taciana Coimbra, Domenico Bolano, Luigi Menichelli, Max Lamour, Arturo Zavala Haag Tom Lovelace and Elizabeth Shingleton Curated by Bare/not Projects (Dinea Smith, Silvia Caso and Kate Weir)