The Return of Come Kiss a Stranger

About

The exhibition will result from Lucy and Alison revisiting a rejected exhibition proposal/funding application Alison made with the artist Kate Howard in 2000. That exhibition, Come Kiss a Stranger, was proposed by two friends, and will now be taken up by two other friends.

The Return of Come Kiss a Stranger will explore the possibilities and impossibilities of re-making a show given a time gap of 19 years. The purpose of this project is not to make the original show, but to explore the contingencies that are revealed when you go back to an old idea and see what it could look like in the present.

Lucy Soni created Why Don’t You…? HQ in 2015 as a response to a lack of opportunities to exhibit in the mainstream. Why Don’t You…? HQ is a not for profit project space with no funding. As the theme of the Art Licks Weekend 2019 is Interdependence, Lucy and Alison are interested in the way a curated show of living artists, some of whom they know, relies on favours, networks and a willingness to cooperate. In this project, they’re also thinking about dependencies on time. Why Don’t You…? HQ has at it its heart the need to be resourceful. Since Lucy can’t hold an exhibition in her house, she approached Alison to see if she could host it. Following the approach Why Don’t You…? HQ has taken in its previous exhibitions, they will focus on playing host and emphasising hospitality. Visitors will be encouraged to experience the domestic space as an art space and the art space as domestic space. As always there will be games of Exquisite Corpse, tea, cake and popcorn; talking is encouraged but not compulsory.