AZRAA MOTALA
AZRAA MOTALA
AZRAA MOTALA
AZRAA MOTALA
AZRAA MOTALA
Jamie Holman
Contagious Acts
The Whitaker
‘Contagious Acts’ interrogates the heritage, rituals and aesthetics of gathering—whether on the medieval battlefield, the dance floor, the factory floor, or the football stadium. These spaces remain battlegrounds of power and protest while also functioning as sites of cultural production and resistance.
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Jamie Holman explores the intertwined histories of class, governance, and the politics of collective gatherings—across the two fundamental spheres of working-class experience: Labour and Leisure or Work and Play. Connecting a heritage of English subjugation; to its ongoing state in the present.
Bushcrafters
Making / Making do
prism Contemporary
Throughout time, makers have garnered specialised, even niche skill sets in order to problem solve and carry out their creative desires. Beyond certain fundamentals within any given craft or trade, these cultivated dexterities become individualised, only making sense or being useful to that person’s particular needs. In the world of art and object making, the components utilised in form-giving may seem arbitrary, superfluous, or even silly to the eye of the observer. Is everything at our disposal nowadays? This thought is compounded by the image economy, the erosion of natural materials, and the contemporary forever surplus of waste and destruction. In truth and even so, an object’s “necessity”- its right to exist - will forever be validated by the fact that it simply already does.
Borrowing the term from hobbyist survivalism, Bushcrafters celebrates the frenzied sets of hands interested in taking whatever it is around them and turning it into something singular (useful or otherwise) through discernible, sincere, and straightforward actions. Just as those who take minimal supplies into the wilderness and forge what it is they need to get through their self-inflicted exile from modern society, this group of makers (six “local” from the UK and seven international) has been gathered for their shared impulse to cope with the world as it is today through seemingly ad-hoc yet deliberate production: each slice, stack, layer or remix to create something inherently familiar but always new, maybe even needed beyond the shadow of contemporary dread. The dividing line between their materials and forms of choice are split by the anthropogenic concept of locality - or what’s near; versus universality, what’s everywhere - raising questions around who has access to what, and whether creating is about living or merely about surviving.
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Curated by Kellie Riggs with Artists; Adam Grinovich (US), Bernhard Schobinger (CH), David Clarke (UK), Fabio Giorgi Alberti (IT), Georgina Treviño (MX/US), James Ackerley (UK), James Tailor (UK), Kieran Leach (UK), Kostas Lambridis (GR), Lucia Massari (IT), Maisie Pritchard (UK), Niki Colclough (UK), Tamara Johnson (US) and Trey Burns (US).
LYDIa Mccaig
& Eli Craven
The NAsty Book
Paradise WOrks
Lydia McCaig elicits the tension she experiences, caught between her own sense of a woman’s sexuality and the male gaze; and her upbringing within the Church. A place where religious teachings on sex, foster a deep-seated conflict between moral restraint and youthful curiosity. This conflict manifests in her work through the use of religious iconography and the subversive reveal of clandestine sexuality seen in sacred imagery.
Eli Craven re-evaluates the psychological and emotional power of photographic images, using material interventions to explore themes of sexuality, desire, and death in the everyday. Reconfiguring mundane or discarded images, manipulating found images and creating compositions, he invites viewers to confront the potential and intent of the images' subjects.
FLorian Höulker & Sophie Lourdes Knight
Recollection
Paradise WOrks
In the first of a series of duo shows at The Second Act, Florian Houlker’s renditions of the Accrington brick establish the foundation of a selection of works dedicated to emblems of early and post-industrial devices.
Both artists elevate common objects, often with a playfulness that unlocks the value they hold as storytelling both as devices or metaphors for our social or emotional states.
Whilst Sophie’s paintings deal with a broad spectrum of subjects often subverted to create a deviation from their true form; works have been selected for this exhibition that apply this language to articles of working class labour - both pre and post-mechanisation.
Florian’s works draw focus to the overlooked skill of working class labour, and the reductive viewpoint of hand-applied craftsmanship used in the everyday.
Masimba hwati
Sokunge
prism Contemporary
Sokunge is a Shona word describing 'something in transition, or in the process of becoming.' This long term project by artist Masimba Hwati from Zimbabwe celebrates small acts of resistance; the acts that ordinary people practise every day that populate the in-between, known as 'kurembera' in Ghetto Lingua.
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Masimba's sculptures are activated through performance, acting as devices for collaborative, sonic performances and remaining in stasis as traditional art objects. Known for his unconventional mixed-media propositions, he examines cultural and political themes by re-appropriating archives and historical culturally-imbued found items repositioning them in a contemporary urban context.
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His performative works have juxtaposed dances including The Detroit Jit and Zimbabwe Jiti, drawing parallels between social and cultural constructs that manifest in the rituals of popular culture, and become a resistance of the everyday, referencing diverse geographies and contexts.
Masimba is completing a PHD in Art Practice at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Vienna; exploring the places where sculpture, sound and performance meet, using urban and traditional cultures from Zimbabwe as departure points.
BABAK GANJEI
Home Is Where Your Heart Is Smashed To Pieces
prism Contemporary
Babak Ganjei’s work as a visual artist & writer is both a blend of cultural references and sharing his darkly funny inner monologue, which has given Babak his signature style.
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Babak graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins in 2001, and continues to live and work in London. Since graduating he has been working independently as an artist, playing in bands (Absentee, Wet Paint), writing comic books (Hilarious Consequences, Early Learnings, Twit), hosting regular radio show "Hot Mess" on NTS radio and making comedy shorts that have played on Channel 4.
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In 2014 Babak sold a set of twigs from his neighbourhood on eBay for £62. He has turned books by Jeremy Clarkson, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump into works of blackout poetry, and tried to sell a painting of his credit card back to Barclays for the value of the debt. It didn’t work but he made a “friend”.
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He sent his first email in the Saint Martins library and vowed the internet would never take off. He has been on the back foot ever since.
A body of work inspired by the Greek Myth of Persephone, McCaig invites the male gaze in erotic propositions that positions the unseen and the poetic as artwork. In this body of work, McCaig presents the personal as political and plays with erotic elements in a performative and suggestive manner.
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This work is informed and inspired by Greek Mythology, Man Ray and Bresson, as well as poking fun and playing with the male gaze, through this body of work she demonstrates the hypocrisy inherent in the art worlds patriarchal policing of how a woman may present her body, sexuality and desires beyond the accepted conventions of art history.
An exploration of emergent cultures that form in working class towns across Northern England. This series of works interrogate ‘gatherings’ through the lens of crowd theory, questioning the ownership of public space, the manifestation and ownership of cultures, and the tension between state power and mass resistance through sport and leisure.
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The artist’s research often connects to the socio-cultural significance of mass gatherings, establishing a common connection between seemingly disassociated watershed moments in British history, in which everyday people initiated behaviours that would become our future cultural norms. Here he links the industrious workspaces of the 1880s packed with cotton mill weavers, the swaying crowds of the North’s football terraces (established by those same weavers a century earlier), and the swarming numbers at illegal raves of the 80s, as people reclaimed the empty spaces that cotton abandoned.
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The imagery in these textile works, are manifested through the reconfiguration and reconstruction of original source photography from police surveillance stills. This now normalised monitoring activity was still a fairly new practice in policing in the 1980s. Both raves and football terraces were documented with the intention of both recording activities and regular faces in the crowds, whilst also capturing the police handling of any incidents as evidence of procedural compliance.
Lydia MCCAIG
little bruises
prism Contemporary
A deviation from the photographic imagery she is known for, her use of audio, video and light brings the performative aspects that she typically captures in image, to the forefront of the exhibition space. Working in new formats reflects a shift within her personal life, as she interrogates her relationship with sex and love through new mediums, re-evaluating her place within both.
This body of work builds a dialogue around the room. Just as sexual chemistry is developed through conversation, affectations of the body and touch, visual queues or the intimacy of environments; the artworks found in ‘Little Bruises’ represent these subconscious details in the building of sexual attraction, romance and connection. In this exhibition Lydia paraphrases the words of performers, distils the sounds and visuals of seduction and expresses herself through language. Through this she creates the space that sex and romance inhabit; anxiety, excitement, intrigue, anticipation, warmth, love.
These works communicate a personal transition; the desire for casual sex becoming a desire for intimacy and tenderness. One of McCaig’s most open pieces, describes her interrogation of her patterns and behaviours that have sprung from childhood trauma. She opens up about her struggles and attempts to re-evaluate her desires. This personal interrogation of the need to balance her distinct interest in erotica, seduction and intimacy whilst breaking down the walls through a newfound vulnerability.
Danny Davidson uses the colour pink as a representation of how our eyes and brains perceive the world around us, creating our own interpretation of visual stimuli, that often do not exist when broken down to a scientific reality.
Danny has previously chosen to exhibit artwork in a non-typical gallery space and to a non-typical gallery audience. Previous exhibition sites have included a cabin in the woods, a haunted mansion ruin, and a derelict terrace row, weeks away from demolition. Danny staged these exhibitions for an audience of birds, ghosts and syntesthetes respectively.
Seven Pink Paintings saw the artists reverse this format, exhibiting paintings at Prism Contemporary Gallery, an environment free of distraction. Offering an investigation into the unequivocal truth, of what, and how we see.
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Danny uses paint and colour to express, sound, mood and multidimensional experiences brought about through meditative states. The results of these conversations move between recognisable imagery and abstraction. Using traditional tools of oil paint, canvas and brush as a medium of expression, Danny uses oil with remarkable liquidity, often washing the canvas in strokes, removing the technique from the traditional uses of the medium.
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Through this approach the artists creates heteromorphic outcomes which comprise of pool-like forms across the canvas, that invite the viewer in, to then seemly one colour canvas.
LYDIA MCCAIG
no sweeter taste on my tongue
A modest Show
Lydia McCaig delves into the complexities of relationships, intimacy, seduction and the pain of giving too much of yourself to another person. Processing her thoughts initially through text, she moves text into imagery, using the camera and placing herself in the frame to visualise the emotion behind her writing in a photographic series. Through this work she navigates the constant shifts of dynamics in relationships and the unintentional demands that are the consequence of relationships. The power shift within relationships becomes metamorphic; through descriptions of hunger, dining and devouring. Is the gaze of desire, a reduction of your value? Are you a person or a meal?
Elliot Flanagan
blancmange
A modest Show
In his new work for A Modest Show, Elliott Flanagan invites you to eat yourself to death. It is the night before tough new laws from the Convention for Climate Protection and Environmental Recovery come into force. In the morning, the start of meat rationing. Responsible consumption and production will be introduced. The mixed grill will be outlawed, an illegal Sunday roast will carry a fixed penalty fine and a SWAT Team will descend on any BBQ without a permit. In this gastronomic climax, Flanagan studies how in the shadow of an impending climate and nature emergency, what we eat has become a moral question. Our public and private habits, traditions and rituals towards food and drink are intensified during this one last party of overflowing plates, spilt glasses, swollen bellies and crumbs in your lap.
A one night only event presented through video, audio, installation and text.
Group show
The National Festival of Making
Over the weekend of The National Festival of Making, 2022, The Second Act Gallery held a pop up gallery space to showcase the work of various represented artists, including Lydia McCaig, Jamie Holman, Danny Davidson, Dan Edwards, Masimba Hwati, Azraa Motala & guest artist Elliott Flanagan.
Jamie Holman, masimba Hwati
& Jasleen Kaur
the British invasion
British Textile Biennial
Commissioned by the British Textile Biennial, curator Alex Zawadzki invited three artists with colonial narratives visible in their practice to enter a dialogue with her and with each other in order to develop the parameters for a group exhibition that responded to the ‘Cotton Exchange’ in Blackburn, now a semi derelict space; it had once been ‘the stock exchange’ of one of the country’s wealthiest towns of the Industrial revolution as a consequence of weaving and cotton production. Each exchange that passed through the hands of mill owners added a new layer of colonial violence, through appropriated cultures, enslavement, false promises, stolen lands and resources. Developed over a twelve month period of zoom calls, discussions, provocations and curatorial conversations the artists confirmed their works and installed the exhibition despite the challenges of geography, local, national and international lockdowns to deliver a headline exhibition for the Biennial. The British Invasion is three artists articulating their inherited and lived experiences of colonisation; sharing these experiences through the lens of both the colonised and coloniser. They consider the ongoing cultural, social, identity and behavioural impacts of colonial history on the current mainstream. How objects of desire, sports and entertainment were often used as a form of distraction and subterfuge by the British, in the colonisation of foreign nations; before becoming embedded in cultures and re appropriated in music, fashion, sport and language. Through these works and shared dialogue, Jamie Holman, Masimba Hwati and Jasleen Kaur pick away at the subtexts of colonialism through personal stories, leaving us to sit with the unresolved mess left behind.