Space Lapse: RCA Sculpture 2020

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Preview 12th June 12 - 5pm (Gallery access will follow Government Guidelines) 12th - 19th June 2021 Opening times Mon - Sat 11am - 5pm

“Confined to our homes, our neighbourhoods, our nations, we have developed a hunger not only for new spaces, but also for new objects through which space – both physical and psychological, familiar and unfamiliar – might be newly articulated. This is one of the great promises of sculpture, and one that this exhibition keeps” On Space Lapse, Tom Morton.

A graduate exhibition is a space where multiple sites of knowledge production collide: artist studio; workshop; library; archive, etc. It is a space where years of diligent study are miraculously and alchemically distilled, and then cast into a purified output. In this way, each practice finds its own, unique form that although disparate in its multitude of mediums and concerns - whose diversity this exhibition celebrates - becomes unified through a foundational demand for space, audience and a subsequent physical encounter. This unparalleled rite of passage was curtailed for the class of 2020. However, this cohort resisted limbo and strode forward with their practices: they embraced novel restraints; navigated the choppy, disembodying waters of online learning, and charted new territory via RCA2020 (an online platform that showcased their work). Notwithstanding, a fundamental demand for space remained, that now, a year after the fact, is answered here in Space Lapse.

Space Lapse does not indulge in nostalgic reminiscences over a past now lost. Instead, it poses a point of departure. The works this exhibition holds are both bold statements and ambitious propositions, ever adaptive to evolving spatial constraints and logistical challenges; resilient and engaging, but most of all a body of work that does not compromise on clarity and concept. Space Lapse’s 30 exhibiting artists have all embraced a necessary plasticity within their practices, and this is exemplified by the works in the show: expansive installations have been scaled down; closed borders have been circumnavigated by the free movement of video and new media, and entirely new practices have emerged. Space Lapse is the long planned focal point of the work of a graduate cohort who, at its starkest, became separated (physically) by a distance of over 6,000 miles in the critical months preceding the conclusion of their study.

Exhibiting Artists: Ellie Antoniou, Solanne Bernard, Abigail Burt, Daniel Carnevale, Tere Chad, Sasha Cherkasova, Lina Choi, Arthur Cohen, Oliver Collins, Romane Courdacher, Marc-Aurèle Debut, Simone Eisele, Tamir Erlich, Michael Forbes, Sophie Kemp, Dolly Kershaw, Nuka Nayu, Huiyi Li, Julie Maurin, Flore Mycek, Jakob Rava, Laura Robertson, Eva Roovers, Katharina Siegel, Sean Tseng, Alejandro Villa Durán, Sara Wu, Nanzhen Yang, Opper Zaman, Yixin Zhang.

Contact: teresa.chadwick@network.rca.ac.uk
https://2020.rca.ac.uk/programmes/sculpture-ma @rcasculpture @royal_sculptors