Exhibition private view

July 11, 6-9 pm
 

Invasive Behaviour features work by eight contemporary artists: Samuel Capps, Lily Hawkes, Joey Holder, Anna Hughes, Tomasz Kobialka, Isaac Lythgoe, Nemo Nonnenmacher and Rafal Zajko. This group exhibition explores the intersection between nature and culture, reflecting an invasive behaviour that encompasses new technological and aesthetic attributes. Seeds of a new subjectivity that began with nature and, through technology’s entanglement, have sprouted a new consciousness. In so doing they force us to question that which we thought was purely biological.

Downloaded personalities, emotions constituted by data - our Deleuzian “Body without Organs” is living our parallel life in it’s virtual environment. This rhizomatic structure allows us to exist in multiple times, forms and contexts. This new identity forges its path through liminalities and non idealised places, like a circuit board of roots in a Ballardian world appearing to be independent on the surface while being interconnected underneath.

The exhibition will be open July 12-15, 12-7pm.

For all enquire, please contact:

Camilla Cole
camilla@coleprojects.co.uk
+44(0)7855001697
www.coleprojects.co.uk

Nina Runa Essendrop 

23 June, 1-6pm 

£5 / Sign up

rsvp to edfornielesstudio@gmail.com

This larp by Nina Runa Essendrop in an intuitive, sensuous and abstract larp in which players create fictive islands using soundscapes before exploring them together as members of a lost tribe. The players will practice how to use their voices in different ways and how to follow each other’s sounds to create coherent soundscapes. This larp also uses touch, movement and description of inner visions as primary tools and players will have their eyes closed throughout most of the larp. No Island is an Island was originally created to produce sound material for the performance installation “Ingen ø er en ø” by Francis Patrick Brady.

No experience of larp or movement-based practice is necessary to take part. Please dress in clothes you are comfortable to move around in.

Larp is originally an acronym for Live Action Role Playing, but today it’s used as name in itself. It refers to an interactive activity where people immerse themselves in fictional worlds to experience how others might live. Larps are played by groups of 2 or more people facilitated by a games master whose role is to ensure the players feel safe, understand the rules, roles and fiction within the larp.

Nordic Larp is a school of larp design originating in the Nordic countries and is one which values immersion, collaboration and artistic vision. This larp event is of the Nordic school.

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Nina Runa Essendrop is a Danish artist and larp designer with a masters degree in Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies. She has a strong focus on movement, sensory experiences and the meaning of physical action. Nina is an active player in the Nordic Larp community. She has designed and produced blackbox larps, freeform games, large scale-larps, audience inclusive larps and larp festivals and she has collaborated with artists in both Europe and New York. She has designed and run workshops, larps, performances and interactive theatre pieces at among others Transmediale 2016 (Berlin, Germany), Momentum: The 8th Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art (Moss, Norway), The Flea Theatre (New York, US), Dome of Visions (Århus, Denmark) and Ormston House (Limmerick, Ireland). 

​Exhibition opening

Audrey Williams & Sung Tieu

May 25, 6-9pm

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Play-Co and All Welcome invite you to an exhibition of very personal work by Audrey Williams and Sung Tieu.

Join us for drinks with the artists from 6pm on 25 May. The exhibition will be open the following weekend and evenings by appointment until 31 May.

The exhibition's press release is open to comment.

Audrey Williams (b. 1951, London, UK) is a self-taught artist. Working primarily in the medium of painting, her works often incorporate elements of photomontage and collage. Her subjects range from Black history to pop culture icons, warriors to wildlife, overlapping into and out of each other as she pushes the boundaries of categorisation using both conventional tools of portraiture and less expected methods of her own imagination. She has previously exhibited at Brixton Town Hall, Streatham and West Norwood Library, The Platform in Loughborough Junction, Adornment Hair and Fashion, The OXO Tower, and The Stephen Lawrence Trust (all in London, UK).

Sung Tieu (b. 1987, Vietnam) is a German-Vietnamese artist based in London. Working predominantly with film, sculpture and sound, her installations explore the dynamics of geographic displacement, their inherent socio-political imbalances and psychological effects on the 21st century global citizen. She is currently a post-graduate student at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK. Previous exhibitions and performances include Nha San (Hanoi, Vietnam), Sfeir-Semler (Hamburg, Germany/Beirut, Lebanon), Art Basel Statements (Basel, Switzerland), Kunstverein in Hamburg (Hamburg, Germany), Royal Academy of Arts (London, UK) and 47 Canal (New York, USA).

www.allwelcome.org

The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone

13 May, 3pm 

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Join us for a reading group led by artist and curator Jasmine Picot-Chapman, where we will discuss equality within the context of our society's moral criteria, as well as the oppositional voices that complicate the monolithic, didactic nature of Western knowledge and value production.

For the main text, we'll look at Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson's The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone. This will be discussed in conversation with passages from Chandra Talpade Mohanty's Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, a text which is optional (though encouraged) to read beforehand. Through these texts, we'll be considering progress as a collective act of survival, and how we can overcome our susceptibility to stifle others in the process. 

The Spirit Level 

chpt. 1, 13, 14, 16 

PDF

Feminism Without Borders (optional) 

chpt. 8

PDF

4 May, 7pm 

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Open Mic night was originally conceived of in 2015 in Los Angeles by artists Ed Fornieles and Ann Hirsch as a place to test their comedic skills. After the first event it was clear that the funnies were perhaps not the most interesting element of the evening.

After several nights, stand-up comedy slowly gave way to open mics, where people were able talk openly about their experiences, feelings and hopes in a supportive environment without the pressure of being comedic geniuses. Each evening, people attending were open to get up on stage and talk freely around a given subject. 

Topic: FEMININITY

Femininity: it's hard to define, yet nonetheless is very present in the TV we watch, the threads we read and the clothes we wear. Join us for our second open mic night where we will try to begin unpacking femininity, and how it has effected us all personally. 

This Open Mic night will be hosted by comedian Sophie Crawford.

20 April, 8pm

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Queerdirect would like to invite you to our dinner party at Play-Co! 

8 til late on the 20th April.

Queerdirect is an LGBTQI+ Artist support network, curatorial platform and arts programme.

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www.instagram.com/queerdirect

11 April, 7pm 

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Stop by the studio to for a film night featuring Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation, part of the director's teen apocalypse trilogy. 

Followed by drinks and discussion. 

19 March, 8pm

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Open Mic night was originally conceived of in 2015 in Los Angeles by artists Ed Fornieles and Ann Hirsch as a place to test their comedic skills. After the first event it was clear that the funnies were perhaps not the most interesting element of the evening. 

After several nights, stand-up comedy slowly gave way to open mics, where people were able to talk openly about their experiences, feelings and hopes in a supportive environment without the pressure of being comedic geniuses. Each evening, people attending were open to get up on stage and talk freely around a given subject. For our inaugural British launch the subject will be men. We've all had experience with them. 

Topic: MASCULINITY

Men: Perhaps you are one or maybe you come into daily contact with them in personal or professional environments. In any case, they are hard to avoid. Join us for our first London open mic night where we will talk about men and masculinity, using the open mic format to collectively unpack this ubiquitous identity form. Everyone welcome including the curious observer. 

This Open Mic night will be hosted by comedian, screenwriter and director Simon Amstell.

Film screening

10 March, 4pm

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Christopher Kulendran Thomas and Annika Kuhlmann will screen and discuss their new film 60 million Americans can’t be wrong. Commissioned by DIS and Tensta konsthall, the film provides historical context to their long-term project to develop a distributed evolution of the existing model of the housing co-operative. Raising questions about citizenship in an era of intensified dislocation, their speculative documentary tells the story of Google’s rivalry with Microsoft and the emergence of cloud computing in relation to the ideas of economist Albert O Hirschman, whose 1970 treatise ‘Exit, Voice & Loyalty’ has since become quietly influential amongst Silicon Valley’s tech industry. Understanding the United States as a nation of emigrants (himself included), Hirschman argues that ‘exit’ - the option of emigrating - is actually the ultimate means of ensuring political accountability. But if you wanted to pioneer a New World today, where would you go? 

Kuhlmann and Thomas’s film looks at the architecture of clouds and considers the emancipatory potential of technologically-accelerated mobility beyond national boundaries, exploring how the networked individual – rather than the industrial labourer – might actually be the revolutionary subject of a post-capitalist economy.

This informal screening will be followed by a discussion.

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Christopher Kulendran Thomas is an artist whose work manipulates some of the structural processes by which art produces reality. His work has been included in the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016), the 9th Berlin Biennale (2016), the 3rd Dhaka Art Summit (2016) and in exhibitions including “I was raised on the Internet”, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018), “New Eelam: Tensta”, Tensta konsthall, Stockholm (2017), “Christopher Kulendran Thomas”, New Galerie, Paris (2017), “Bread and Roses”, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2016), “moving is in every direction”, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2017), “Co-Workers: Network As Artist”, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2015) and “Art Turning Left: How Values Changed Making”, Tate Liverpool (2013). Thomas' work can currently be seen as part of the 7th Bi-City Biennale in Shenzhen, "DIS: Genre-Nonconforming" at the de Young Museum (San Francisco), "Thumbs That Type and Swipe" at La Casa Encendida (Madrid) and "Our Thing: Aude Pariset, Jon Rafman, Christopher Kulendran Thomas" at Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran (Montreal).

Annika Kuhlmann is a curator who works predominantly through long-term collaborations. As Creative Director at the art-led technology company New Eelam, she has been collaborating with artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas on presentations for the 9th Berlin Biennale, the 11th Gwangju Biennale, the 7th Bi-City Biennale in Shenzhen and exhibitions at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Tensta konsthall, Stockholm. She has curated exhibitions at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, New Galerie Paris and BFI Miami. Together with curator Anna Frost she established the curatorial project planes.sx. And as a founder of Brace Brace she has exhibited at MoMA Warsaw, Auto Italia in London, KM Temporär in Berlin and for DIS magazine. She is currently working with Tino Sehgal on an upcoming exhibition as part of the ‘Immersion’ programme at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin.

Exhibition opening

February 23, 7:30pm

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Play Co is excited to present I am with London-based artist Gaby Sahhar, featuring an installation of 2d works and a screening of The Disappearance of Gaby Sahhar with an introduction by curator Tamar Clarke-Brown. Followed by drinks with the artist.

The Disappearance of Gaby Sahhar (2017) is a fictional documentary investigating the identity theft of South London local Gaby Sahhar. This extended BBC News broadcast explores the changing face of the area, a landscape shaped by the forces of gentrification, and investigates identity formation in reference to gentrified space. Recounting the stories of four men living and working in the suburbs of South London, it looks at how such spaces have developed to cater for these new characters.

Gaby Sahhar is a French-Palestinian multidisciplinary artist and founding member of the Queer Direct Ltd. Collective. His work focuses on queer politics and identity formation in relation to urban spaces.

February 18, 2pm

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This month we'll be discussing part I of Sarah Schulman's 'The Gentrification of the Mind'.

A memoir of the AIDS crisis in New York (1981-1996), this book explores the transition of a rebellious queer culture to gay conservative spokespeople and mainstream consumerism. Schulman recounts her experience as a witness to the loss of a generation’s imagination and the consequences of that loss.

Focusing on chpt. 1-3, we'll look at the impacts of gentrification in our communities and the relation of queer culture to identity formation in urban spaces.

December 9, 2pm

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“Being taken seriously means missing out on the chance to be frivolous, promiscuous, and irrelevant. The desire to be taken seriously is precisely what compels people to follow the tried and true paths of knowledge production around which I would like to map a few detours.” 

Our second reading group will look at Judith Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure, which proposes alternative understandings of success in heteronormative, capitalist societies. Using low theory and queer theory as modes of analysis, Halberstam reconceptualises failure as a way to undo dominant narratives of power and discipline. In this program, we’ll focus on chpt. 1-3 and talk about the current forms of knowledge production and logics of success that we adhere to. Sharing experiences and thoughts, we’ll aim to queer our ideas of failure and explore different ways of being.  

November 11, 2pm

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Join us for our first reading group at the studio, where we will be talking about The Will to Change, a book by bell hooks that explores how masculinity currently performs itself in patriarchal society and the personal and structural effects it has. The aim of the program will be to map out these ideas of masculinity, thinking about how they relate to the group's own experiences; identifying how they seed, sustain and replicate themselves culturally. Ideally, everyone will have read the book prior to the meetup and sketched out their thoughts, then we'll simply start a roundtable discussion from there and follow it wherever seems appropriate.

"Everyone needs to love and be loved - even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are - whatever their age, marital status or sexual orientation."

November 4, 7:30pm

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Join play co for an informal screening of 'The Work' directed by Jairus McLeary + Gethin Aldous.

Set inside a single room in Folsom Prison, 'The Work' follows three men from outside as they participate in a four-day group therapy retreat with level-four convicts. Over the four days, each man in the room takes his turn at delving deep into his past. The raw and revealing process that the incarcerated men undertake exceeds the expectations of the free men, ripping them out of their comfort zones and forcing them to see themselves and the prisoners in unexpected ways.

'The Work' offers a powerful and rare look past the cinder block walls, steel doors and the dehumanising tropes in our culture to reveal a movement of change and redemption that transcends what we think of as rehabilitation. 

October 5-6

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Play-Co summit aims to bring people from art, gaming and LARP (live action role-playing) backgrounds together to begin a broad discussion on the possibilities of role play. This two-day event will include LARP sessions, talks, workshops, video screenings and panel discussions in the hopes of fostering a space where we can share ideas and techniques, and learn from one another's approaches.

Organized by Ed Fornieles and Penny Rafferty.

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Speakers: 

Iain Ball
Eloïse Bonneviot
Anne de Boer 
Ed Fornieles
Matt Goerzen
Katie Hare
Jamie Harper
Mo Holkar
Adam James
Sarah Jury
Hamish MacPherson
Omsk Social Club
Penny Rafferty
Tea & Marta Strazicic
Chris Timms
Kristof Trakal
Milos Trakilovic 
Mario Udzenija
Elvia Wilk
Laura Wood
Hannah Zafiropoulos