Curating Contemporary Art (MA)
Benjamin Darby
So remember the liquid ground is conceived as a programme of meditative and sensorial experiences across the digital, physical and spiritual realms. Responding to and expanding from the forgotten social histories and ecologies of Vauxhall in London, the programme has been inspired by the secret and suppressed River Effra, which flows underneath the area. The river acts as a way to re-imagine, navigate, feel and find ways in which we connect and synchronise with our surroundings.
The immersive programme features newly commissioned live sound streaming, moving images and performances, by Soundcamp Collective, Myriam Lefkowitz and Julie Laporte, Zoë Marden, Eduardo Navarro, Anna Nazo, Himali Singh Soin and Linda Stupart.
The programme also includes a Reading Room that acts as a circadian space for collective imagining and reflection on the body beyond authoritative representation, with contributions from Chus Martínez, Clay AD, Helga Schmid, Ignota, PaperWork Magazine and NXS.
So remember the liquid ground is curated by Benjamin Darby, Yoojin Kang, Akis Kokkinos, Angelina Li, Lenette Lua, Louise Nason as part of the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2020, Royal College of Art in partnership with Gasworks.
It is also generously supported by Vauxhall One.
A physical iteration of the project will be presented in Autumn 2020 in the wider area of Vauxhall.
Image credit: Linda Stupart, WATERSHED, 2020, video
Sponsors
Vauxhall One
Benjamin Darby is a UK based curator, artist, and researcher. His curatorial practice challenges predetermined conditions, conventions and cannons, through generating alternative discursive platforms to enable a diverse polyvocal array of dialogue.
His dissertation titled ‘The Currency of Feeling: Identity in A Fractured Britain', explored the different appeals being made by audiences targeted programming within public cultural institutions around the conflicting notion of identity signifiers. In analysing integrated approaches to programming and segmented form of marketing, the text analyses the different engagement strategy’s institutions are using to reimagine how they perceive, generate and promote to their audiences.
His curatorial interests are reflected in his graduate project So remember the liquid ground that is inspired by the secret and suppressed River Effra which flows underneath South London. The sensorial programme reconsiders the possibilities of online platforms in facilitating interpersonal relationships and explores new ways of being together.
His values of care and empathic working were reaffirmed on the 2019 NEON Curatorial Exchange ran in partnership with Whitechapel Gallery, as he learned new ways to generate cross-disciplinary collaborations within different cultural and international contexts.
Benjamin was the cofounder of the temporary artists led project space Triptych Gallery, for which he curated and exhibited in the show Intermingle (February 2016). He has curated the shows Painting by Numbers at Kingston School of Art (April 2018), Inventory of Behaviours: Blip Blip Blip at East Street Arts, Leeds (February 2017) and also exhibited / co-led events for the programme No Working Title, as part of Uniqlo Tate Lates at Tate Modern (January 2017). He has also previously graduated from Kingston School of Art with a BA in Fine Art.
