Liquid Life

About

The title of the exhibition refers to Zygmunt Bauman’s book ‘Liquid Life’ which explores notions of our contemporary society that are constantly fluid, precarious, uncertain. As a direct result of this contemporary condition, the use of the home space has become ever present as a way to circumvent standard systems of display, production, or consumption of goods and culture. Presentation in this space provides a framework for showing a combination of cultural artefacts including art, design, and other quotidian items, with each invited participant having a particular relationship here by setting, approach, or content.

Bless (Berlin, Paris) works across products and fashion, creating dynamic ways to engage the end-user. Most of their output has run out of an apartment in Berlin since the early 2000s as a matter of necessity, but also from discontent of a standard position on the high street. They continue to present projects in similar spaces and alternative formats. For their first major presentationto a UK audience, they present a selection of products for home and social interaction.

Millington Marriott began their curatorial projects with a series of exhibitions entitled ‘Weekends’ from their flat in Peckham, South London. Since then they’ve sustained their ideas through off-site projects and periphery art fairs. The Liquid Life exhibition offers them an opportunity to return to the motivation where their collaborations with up-and-coming artists began, and to reflect on how their curatorial work has evolved.

Work by curatorial collective Panel (Glasgow) is presented, whose focus lies more within design itself. Their practice involves conducting research into conceptual histories and futures for the discipline, and its wide-ranging effect. Here they present a selection of recent commissions, determining a new history for these objects that now find themselves together in a home setting.

‘Work at Home’ also presents its own selection of curated works that are shown throughout the house. A wallpaper by The Grantchester Pottery inhabits the stairs, NOMAN’s video and photographic works traverse the hallway, and Anne de Vries photographs explore the permanence and impermanence of images. In the kitchen are the outsized ceramics of Alicia Ongay Perez, as well as Marco Bruzzone’s custom made pasta in the shape of structural “I” beam’s with appropriated archival image. During the exhibition a series of curated dinner and brunch events will enhance the exchange in the home space.

All of the works presented demonstrate an ethos to work outside of boundaries of production, fulfilling ideas by any means possible, working outside standard methodologies and systems for  consumption. We invite you to the open house to experience what a contemporary collection of art and design looks like today.