'oxbow' curated by Olivia Grace Middelboe at Projektraum London

About

‘oxbow’

Chloe Boston, Hannah Rowan, May Hands, Poppy Keating and Sophie Mei Birkin

Curated by Olivia Grace Middelboe

15th September to 16th October 2022

Private View: Thursday 15th September 5-9pm

Projektraum London is pleased to present ‘oxbow’, a group exhibition curated by Olivia Grace Middelboe featuring work by Chloe Boston, Hannah Rowan, May Hands, Poppy Keating and Sophie Mei Birkin. The exhibition is part of the gallery’s cooperation with the Department of Art's MFA Curating class at Goldsmiths, University of London. Olivia Grace Middelboe’s exhibition was the winning proposal submitted by 1st year students of the MFA Curating class and selected by a jury advised by Chris Hammond.

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‘Employing sculpture, ceramics, photography, film, and installation, the work in oxbow explores materiality, using glass, clay, organic matter and synthetic materials, whilst also considering our relationship to the Earth and its ecological systems. oxbow creates an environment in which the lines between man-made and natural forms blur, where the work on display could be encountered in the ocean, in a river, on a beach, as if it is existing in or being altered by bodies of water.

The notion of vessels is an overarching theme which runs through the body of work featured, both as having the capacity to hold water and living forms, but also as holding memory and as a space for storing and recording layers of temporality. The work emphasises transformation, tactility and materiality through melting, fragmentation, oxidation, burning. There are traces, residues of memory in found objects, photographs, the movement and changing form of water from ice, material forms shifting. It is not static, it develops and changes with the influence of its external environments.

There is a symbiotic relationship between the practices of the artists exhibited. In their approach, both materially and thematically, an interconnectedness permeates which echoes the natural flow and balance in bodies of water and the ecosystems which exist within them. As we face climate breakdown, considering our relationship to the surrounding ecological systems is fundamental. The artists in oxbow are using synthetic and naturally occurring materials to address this relationship, whilst also exploring the past and potential futures.’

(Olivia Grace Middelboe, September 2022)

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For further information please visit www.claasreiss.com/projektraum-london, email projektraumlondon@claasreiss.com or call +44 7769 566 922. Please follow us @projektraumlondon_new and @claasreiss on Instagram. Normal gallery opening hours during exhibitions are Wed to Fri 10am - 6pm, Sat 12pm - 6pm and by appointment.