The Body, Resistance and History

We cannot pretend the conditions for looking and framing have not been shaken and contested by COVID19 and the global Black Lives Matter protests. It is also a significant shift to showcase a degree show online with work that has mostly been made away from the studio and not made accessible to audiences in galleries, that not long ago, was common place and expected.

The body as frontier has reemerged as a major site of resistance and expression, the body also as site of suffering and receptor of violence and disease. I made a connection between the artists here through the use of the body and its relationship and encounters with power, nature, sexuality, commodity and thought. There is also something about the presence of history whether a direct recoding of ideas by Tarkovsky or archival imagery, or personal legacy and stories, streams of consciousness, feminisms and performance - as well as a call to action. When putting together any group presentation of work I would always look to work across forms and media, to encourage cross-pollination and to enable the discursive qualities of practice to be explored.

Lisa Panting