Jess Beige, Ed Compson, Francesca Mollett, Trine Struwe, Kiki Wang and Silke Weißbach feature in St Leonards from August 22 to September 1 at the Babiibak Gallery in Mansell Road, Saturday to Monday 10am – 5pm.
“If you lie in wait for a word at the moment it comes out of the mouth, try to catch it, to chew it before it is spat out (and that would actually be to grasp the gesture of speaking), you notice that you are always a second too late”. according to Czech philosopher Vilém Flusser. /ˈstʌtə(r)/ is a six person exhibition by RCA MA Painting students whose course broke, paused and stuttered due to a global pandemic.
While we have been offered a virtual show as a way to showcase our work, the need for community, communication and intimacy through building physical objects and exhibitions has never been more pressing. The show, using the stutter as a metaphor, will act as both a personal and collaborative reflection on our practices, as well as consider the rupture that has taken place in our education, perception and the materials that surround us.
A stutter (/ˈstʌtə(r)/) exists outside of language – or normal comprehension. It is involuntary pause – or a lapse in sound that acts as a break to traditional understanding. It is within this unknowing, this ghostly transition, this bodily push back against a known reality system of language, that there is a momentary creation of a silent sculpture in the mouth.
The pandemic has been this sculpture, a temporary halt to ‘normality’ in which perception and time bent out of shape. Globalisation halted, when we never thought it could. As culture makers, we must not ignore this rupture, but try to understand it, try to weave it into our practices and understand its potential for change and possibility.
Source: The artists’ press release
Image Credits: Stutter .