VAN
A public exhibition by four artists on the Goldsmiths MFA course.
Wednesday, 24 May 2023
Car Park, Sainsbury’s SE14 5UQ
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1 Julia Thompson
the living and the soft centre
beeswax, lipstick, resin, slush, soap, wax
I make work from the process of mould making which is to say, I fill a cavity with clear, sticky, stale and soft materials - distant from the shape it once filled. I cast sculptures that both preserve and let go of themselves, ultimately spoiling the encapsuled images that make up their core, puffy and disproportionate.
The living and the soft centre, like much of my work, stems from an ever-growing collection of saved images relating to people no longer in reach yet persistent in presence. And difficult to fathom in excess. How does the spam take up the foreground becoming the driver?
Working with material made through impact, material forever manoeuvred around due to its potential of decay and the fluctuating temperaments of daily life, the shapes sit together becoming a memory of a memory, and that memory is ever receding.
2 Michaelis Karaiskos
Tapestry (delivered)
Van’s storage space, oil paint on jute, postal package
Tapestry (delivered) presents my interest in found objects and how painting can act as a device in animating the assemblages I create with these objects, as humanistic like characters. Displaying the work along the walls and floor of the vans storage alongside the postal package references a history and origin in how the work came to be, as well as an ongoingness.
Different international transport companies, such as DHL, FedEx, and UPS, demanded that the sender open the package to prove that the content of it is indeed what the transport document declares before handling. Furthermore, if it is an artwork to be shipped, it must have authorisation (a stamp) from the National Gallery of Greece to travel outside the country’s borders. I question the circulation of an object and the ways in which these necessary circuitry system inscribes meaning in an object – this being from the objects I paint, to then the painting itself as an object.
3 Kester Messan
destination
Moving van, masking tape, paper, printer ink, iPad
My sculptural illustrations combine collage, poetry, and performance techniques to make observations about the society I live in; a society that’s well-established in the death of Black, queer and poor people.
And thus the research behind destination stems from this promise of death. In developing a practice that parallels that of photography, marketing, and construction industries, I hope to reveal that the death, burial, and after-life of my community is deeply tied to those same infrastructures.
4 Raheel Khan
String Motif
Car engine, polypropylene wire
I introduce the engine as an instrument, referencing ‘machine as timbre’ a term created from the futurist manifesto in 1913 by composer Russolo. Russolo’s fascination with both machinery and (problematically) militarism pre-aligns itself to the invention of the Luton van in Bedford, UK 20 years later. A vehicle that was instrumental for the British Military in WWII, the van now exists as infrastructure that we see and/or hear everyday, in commonplace without question.
“String Motif” sits as ongoing research within diasporic cartography, rhythmic composition and organised noise in harmony & dissonance.