Winter/Spring programmes 2020

Lauren Gault: C I T H R A
January 23–March 22, 2020
Preview: Wednesday January 22, 6:30-8:30pm

C I T H R A is the first solo exhibition in London by Glasgow-based artist Lauren Gault. Through her experimentation with unorthodox materials, techniques and manufacturing processes, Gault’s work explores the transitions between different states of matter while addressing the ethical and political implications of human interactions with the environment. 

In Gault’s sculptures, materials as diverse as polished horn, blown glass, pumped air, light, water or agricultural milk powder are transformed by processes involving pressure, tension and release. Her work evokes intangible encounters between radically different materialities and opens up a space for objects to communicate and resonate with one another.

A distant relative of the artist, Martha Craig’s long-forgotten science-fiction novel, The Men of Mars (anonymously published in 1907 under a mysterious pen name, ‘Mithra’), as well as her visionary ideas about physics form the basis for Gault’s exhibition, C I T H R A —its title an allusion to the early Zoroastrian word for “seed,” “species,” “livestock” or “prototype.”

C I T H R A is commissioned and produced by Gasworks. In late 2020, the exhibition will travel to The Tetley in Leeds. Lauren Gault is the fourth artist to take part in the Freelands Gasworks Partnership, a programme that offers emerging artists based outside London a three-month residency and a solo exhibition at Gasworks.
 

Eduardo Navarro 
April 9–June 14, 2020
Preview: Wednesday April 8, 6:30-8:30pm

Gasworks presents the first UK solo exhibition by Buenos Aires-based artist Eduardo Navarro. His work moves away from representation, instead creating sensorial experiences with the potential to induce a radical transformation of the self and others. 

In recent years, Navarro’s work has led him to adopt the metabolism of a reptile, to experiment with ways of embodying the physical properties of light, and to invite a large group of collaborators to animate a giant octopus, thus becoming part of its decentralised nervous system. 

His exhibition at Gasworks will turn the gallery into a living, breathing organism that inhales and exhales air from the street. Acting as a large-scale prosthetic device, Navarro’s immersive new installation will encourage viewers to synchronise their breath and biorhythms with the architecture of Gasworks alongside other visitors.

With a simple gesture, Navarro’s exhibition becomes a space of collective meditation and oceanic breathing, offering audiences a unique opportunity to abandon their individual sense of self and enter a telepathic community, a shared space-time of experience. 

Eduardo Navarro’s exhibition is commissioned and produced by Gasworks.

Gasworks commissions are supported by Catherine Petitgas and Gasworks Exhibitions Supporters.

Residencies Programme 2020
Gasworks’ residencies programme offers studios to international artists for a fully-funded three-month residency to develop new work and research on site.

Upcoming residents:

January 6–March 23, 2020: Joaquín Aras (Argentina), Mica Cabildo (Philippines), Diego Marcon (Italy), and André Romão (Portugal). Open studios: March 14, 2020, 12-6pm.

April 6–June 22, 2020: Mikel Escobales Castro (Spain), Katie Numi Usher (Belize), Etinosa Yvonne (Nigeria), and the Freelands Gasworks Partnership residency (artist TBC). Open studios: June 13, 2020, 12-6pm.

Participation Residencies Programme 2020
The Alternative School of Economics (London-based artists Ruth Beale and Amy Feneck) are in residence until April 2020 for Gasworks’ Participatory Residency Programme: Connecting Communities, a programme that provides opportunities for artists and communities in the local area to work together. They will produce a series of podcasts featuring women’s voices; asking questions and sharing ideas developed from workshops and conversations with women and those who identify as women, who are actively involved in feminist economic projects.

FOTL (Future of the Left), the collaborative artistic and research practice of Andrea Francke and Ross Jardine, have developed an evaluation framework for the project. 

Connecting Communities is supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.