2023 programme

Ingela Ihrman: Nocturne
February 2–April 30, 2023
Preview: February 1, 6:30-8:30pm

Gasworks presents the first London solo exhibition by Malmö-based artist Ingela Ihrman. Moving freely between performance, sculpture and video, her work evokes the interconnected coexistence of seemingly humble life-forms such as invasive weeds, intestinal flora, extinct amphibians and nocturnal birds.

At Gasworks, Ihrman presents both new and existing works, integrating them into a mythological arc inspired by the life (and imagined death) of Swedish nature filmmaker Jan Lindblad. The exhibition opens with Green Paradise (2009), an early video work which offers a gastroscopy-like journey into the meandering digestive tract of a giant snake, imagining what Lindblad would have seen from inside the anaconda he famously wrestled during one of his filming expeditions to the South American rainforest.

A newly-commissioned wearable sculpture will enable viewers to merge—quite literally—with nature, by embodying Lindblad’s partially digested remains after his close encounter with an anaconda. In dialogue with these works, Ihrman will also present a new iteration of Oilbird with Nestling (2021), a work produced in conditions of self-isolation during the pandemic. Transforming the gallery into a pitch-dark nesting cave, Ihrman will encourage viewers to become nocturnal creatures and learn to navigate the exhibition space by echolocation.

Ihrman’s exhibition is commissioned and produced by Gasworks with support from IASPIS, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s international programme for visual and applied arts.

Kent Chan
May 25–September 10, 2023
Preview: May 24, 6:30-8:30pm

Gasworks presents the first UK solo exhibition by Amsterdam-based Singaporean artist Kent Chan. Working in collaboration with other artists, writers and musicians, his practice uses speculative fiction to interrogate the tropical imaginary, past and future relationships between heat and cultural identity, as well as the legacies of colonial modernity in a time of climate crisis.

Chan’s work pushes real-world observations of climate change towards the fictional scenario of a future global tropic. Speculating upon the makeup of societies after the loss of climate variation, the exhibition at Gasworks aims to expand our geoclimatic imagination about the impending future by addressing hypothetical yet urgent questions such as: “If the whole world turned tropical, what would it mean to have an Old and New Tropics? How would global culture and geopolitical relations be reshaped in a mono-climatic world?”

Chan’s moving-image works will be presented as part of an immersive installation that aims to recreate—rather than just represent—the experience of the tropics inside the gallery. Mimicking the tropical monsoons, the installation will create a shifting micro-climate across the venue while subtly choreographing the audience’s navigation of the exhibition space.

Chan’s exhibition is commissioned and produced by Gasworks.

Trevor Yeung
September 28–December 17, 2023
Preview: September 27, 6:30-8:30pm

Gasworks presents the first UK solo exhibition by Hong Kong-based artist Trevor Yeung. His work excavates the inner logics of power structures, looking at how these create conditions for desire and subjectivity to emerge. In his carefully staged installations, the lives of plants and animals become a medium to subtly address notions of control and normativity within social relations.

Gardening and generative practices of care are central to Yeung’s work. While exploring human dominance and the domestication of nature, his practice opens a space where caring encounters take place and living beings negotiate their ways of cohabiting. His delicate sculptures and installations are permeated with intimacy and vulnerability, often in the form of controlled environments which are presented as observations of the human condition.

The exhibition revolves around a large-scale soap cast of Hampstead Heath’s infamous “fuck tree,” whose bark is notoriously polished due to its nocturnal use by the gay cruising community over decades.

Employing light and scent as key elements in his sculptural work, Yeung will transform the gallery to interrogate his emotional connection with Hampstead Heath, a park popular among cruisers since the 19th Century, while exploring the fluid interplay between night and day, public and private life, hiding from others and being seen.  

Yeung’s exhibition is commissioned and produced by Gasworks in partnership with Para Site, Hong Kong.

All Gasworks’ exhibitions are supported by Catherine Petitgas and Gasworks Exhibitions Supporters.

Residencies programme
Gasworks’ residencies programme offers studios to international artists for a fully-funded three-month residency to develop new work and research on site. Confirmed artists for 2023 include: Ivy Brandie Chemutai Ng’ok (Kenya) Supported by Mercedes Vilardell; Leslie-Anne Cao (Philippines) Supported by Mercedes Zobel and Outset; Christian Salablanca Díaz (Costa Rica) Supported by the Shelagh Wakely bequest, administered by the Elephant Trust; Francis Offman (Italy) Supported by Fondazione Memmo; Cheong See Min (Malaysia) Supported by the Institutum; Agrade Camíz (Brazil) Supported by Gasworks’ Brazilian Residency Patrons’ Circle; Clara Esborraz (Argentina) Supported by Erica Roberts and developed in partnership with URRA and arteBA; Blanca Gracia (Spain) Supported by Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and Dafe Oboro (Nigeria), winner of the Access ART X Prize.

Participation programme
Bryan Giuseppi Rodriguez Cambana is our current Participation Artist in Residence, working collaboratively with Latin American communities in our neighbourhood.

In early 2023, Cambana will present the outcome of his 8-month residency, stemming from a series of free English classes and workshops with local community groups. This residency is funded by the City Bridge Trust.

Gasworks is supported by Arts Council, England.