A World withOut End, an exhibition in 7 parts.
Curated by Shizico Yi
‘Living in Lockdown, London’, is an event that everyone in the world can connect with and I wanted to be able to help to build connections through identification with others in a time of isolation. It has been featured on the BBC and I am expanding it to document the experiences of groups of people and how they have been affected by the pandemic in different ways. -- Adam Isfendiyar May 2020
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Peter Van Toth, At Home Series.
Mostly all the artworks in this series were created in a very emotionally intense period of van Toth's life, namely after the birth of his 3rd son at the very end of 2019. Van Toth has withdrawn from the outside world and spent 3 months with his family at home, culminating in the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown of London. Every single thing he thought was unchangeable either fell away or changed. It was all gone, and instead he got a new life. It just started as a stay at home for 3 months, but at the end he woke up in a new age. |

‘Corner of my Studio’: Especially now, I have become fascinated by the actual confines of the space in which I work. In Spring, the changing shadows cast by its architecture are very stark and dynamic, but softened by those flickering shadows cast by the resident plants. My cat, Darcy, insisted on becoming a part of my painting, and in the end, I welcomed him as a fellow being in the space and used his form to link everything else. I enjoyed his company.
‘The View Outside’: The view is a simple one, just the houses opposite. It has no great distance and is completely and utterly familiar. But sometimes, one notices it’s subtle changes, the light catches the top of the geranium leaf on the parapet and dances on the facade of those houses, flashing on the scaffolding which implies a sense of time, repair and evolution. It’s amazing what you notice when stuck inside. -- Karen Popham. 2020 |
Ebru Varol is a New York based photographer. Her images shift aesthetically from black and white to color and conceptually from the candid to the meditative. She shoots in the tradition of street photographers like Eugène Atget and André Kertész, reproducing views of ordinary objects. Her interest is not in the life on the streets but life of the streets: the unconsidered details and her chance encounter with forms. Her protagonists are mannequins and figurines, chairs and windows, staircases, locks, sculptural elements and the light disclosing all these forms. Composed in a theatrical manner, these shapes interact and activate desolate scenes. Glass reflections and mirrors reinforce the illusion of life in her photographs, while at the same time the images remain unconscious of her presence. The viewer is invited to become part of that particular moment and place the image was taken. The viewer may experience the intuitive perception of the meaning of these photographs, parallel to the instinct that caused them to be created: a pure expression of an inner state of being.
Images top left to right. Watch Out, With In, Let it out Copyright: Ebru Varol |
During these trying times, of distance and isolation, it’s hard not do a little overthinking, so you work yourself up, and loose a little faith in reality and what it means to be human (just me?). With ‘Stir Crazy’ I am unclear as to whether this is solely a self-portrait or I have just used my portrait as a surrogate figure for anyone struggling alone in isolation experiencing some form of existential crisis in one way or another. The lack of uncertainty for the future, the loss of life, of jobs, and economic hardship, can be bewildering for those suffering in silence. What has been brought to light, as we all close our doors and cower away, with only a certain few martyrs holding fort through this tempest, is the feeling of helplessness with the breakdown of society into a form of Orwellian nightmare. It is in these times that we begin to question what does it mean to be human within the absurdity of it all? However the glimmer of hope is our memories, our memories of better times, and if we just hold on for a while longer, we will be able to create new memories, together. --Kieran Jack Rook
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Val 9. Not Lost. by Samiir Saunders. One of the series of poetry films navigating anxiety, vulnerability, and a loss of control. ‘oneminuteglitches’ is a series of 12 one-minute poetry films designed to exist within the constraints of an Instagram video post. I was responding to the concept of ‘antifragility’ as coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book ‘Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder’. Each film is made to feel like a diary entry, designed to exist within the constraints of an Instagram video post – i.e. they are one minute long and have a 1:1 aspect ratio. The claustrophobic nature of these constraints is used to create tension between the speaker’s need for self-expression, and the limitations imposed by digital communication technology.
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The Series ' Artist in the Lockdown' was created during the Coronavirus Lockdown in UK. As a person at high risk of my health condition if I catch Coronavirus, by the government recommendations I needed to stay at home on my own up to twelve weeks...I was trying to stay positive and creative.
'The Vital Support' and 'Still life with Flowers from my Garden' are just some of the fragments of my surviving experience during the lockdown; simple beauty of nature that helps to survive during difficult time of Coronavirus lookdown.
'The Vital Support' was created during Coronavirus Lockdown in UK. I am classified as person who is within a high risk Covid-19 category due to my underlying health condition. Thus, I have been officially advised by NHS which is following the government recommendations to stay at home on my own for at least twelve weeks. This came with multiple challenges and one of them was that I have run out of all general food supplies within a week. It was impossible to register for a shopping online in the supermarkets as a new customer. It was only following four weeks when Asda and Waitrose sent me e-mails respectively confirming that they have received the information from the government that I now classify as a vulnerable person and I am given a priority to do my online grocery shopping and get it delivery. Sainsbury's refused to register new vulnerable customers. After two weeks spent online and phone, trying to get support, I received an essential food supply parcel from the government, which mostly consisted of canned food. It was a truly kind gesture which I genuinely appreciated. However, the tin cans were of the type that could only be opened with special tin opener. Unfortunately, I did not have it...
As to the 'Self Portrait', that I have a collection of many vintage gas masks from different countries. I was planning to use them for the installation the H-Hour during my Professional Doctorate’s degree show that was planned to be in June 2020. However, all plans changed. Staying at home on my own for twelve weeks during the lookdown and trying keep myself creative, I made a few self portraits using different gasmasks. -Natalia Jezova
'The Vital Support' and 'Still life with Flowers from my Garden' are just some of the fragments of my surviving experience during the lockdown; simple beauty of nature that helps to survive during difficult time of Coronavirus lookdown.
'The Vital Support' was created during Coronavirus Lockdown in UK. I am classified as person who is within a high risk Covid-19 category due to my underlying health condition. Thus, I have been officially advised by NHS which is following the government recommendations to stay at home on my own for at least twelve weeks. This came with multiple challenges and one of them was that I have run out of all general food supplies within a week. It was impossible to register for a shopping online in the supermarkets as a new customer. It was only following four weeks when Asda and Waitrose sent me e-mails respectively confirming that they have received the information from the government that I now classify as a vulnerable person and I am given a priority to do my online grocery shopping and get it delivery. Sainsbury's refused to register new vulnerable customers. After two weeks spent online and phone, trying to get support, I received an essential food supply parcel from the government, which mostly consisted of canned food. It was a truly kind gesture which I genuinely appreciated. However, the tin cans were of the type that could only be opened with special tin opener. Unfortunately, I did not have it...
As to the 'Self Portrait', that I have a collection of many vintage gas masks from different countries. I was planning to use them for the installation the H-Hour during my Professional Doctorate’s degree show that was planned to be in June 2020. However, all plans changed. Staying at home on my own for twelve weeks during the lookdown and trying keep myself creative, I made a few self portraits using different gasmasks. -Natalia Jezova
Pippa El-Kadhi Brown
Two of Hearts, 2019, Acrylic on canvas, 148 x 148 cm, RZ collection. (left) April, 2018, Oil on canvas, 239 x 209, Private Collection. (right) Two of Hearts was created for my House Plants series. The project explores the concept of home and compares humans to houseplants; organic beings rooted in domestic space. I wanted April to feel light-hearted but with an underlying twist. The fish seek an escape, whilst the figures are blissfully planted amongst the vegetation, unaware of the open door and the engulfing outside space. The figures in April are totally absorbed into their surrounding space, which similarly to Takeaway? is neither entirely outside nor entirely inside, but more so a fusion of the two. --Pippa El-Kadhi Brown |
I wanted to provide and share the ideas/places that bring me calm during uncertain times. In this sunny warm afternoon, by removing any unnecessary distractions, I put into focus the two things I love the most, the sunlight and the sea, and the calmness these two bring me. --Elisa Buscemi
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Breathe. Series. Ebru Varol, 3 videos shot at her home in New York. Play 3 videos at the same time to gain the best experience of the installation.
‘Living in Lockdown, London’, is an event that everyone in the world can connect with and I wanted to be able to help to build connections through identification with others in a time of isolation. It has been featured on the BBC and I am expanding it to document the experiences of groups of people and how they have been affected by the pandemic in different ways. -- Adam Isfendiyar May 2020
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