Adjacent Directly
Amy Cutler
Lewis Davidson
Rob Kesseler
Kristina Pulejkova
Vivien Sansour
Daniel Silva
Sanne Vaassen
Mileece*
Exhibition Dates: 5-28 September 2019
Private View: Wednesday, 4 September, 6-9pm
A week of events, workshops and talks in conjunction with globalclimatestrike.net/
Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop is pleased to present Adjacent Directly, a group exhibition which examines the reality of humans living beside nature rather than with it, often exploiting nature to our own endangerment. At this critical moment of climate crisis, the gallery brings together artists, activists and inventors to encourage discussion and reflection.
Participating artists include Vivien Sansour, a writer, conservationist and filmmaker whose work brings to life stories around seeds and soil, which she recently discussed on BBC Radio 4. Daniel Silva creates sculptures that contain seeds, encouraging visitors to take them away from the gallery and to use them to grow plants for much-needed bee pollen. Rob Kesseler has worked extensively with botanical scientists at Kew exploring the creative potential of microscopic plant material; he prepares specimens in the lab and use a range of complex microscopy processes to create multi-frame composite images of pollen, seeds, fruits and other plant organs. Artist Kristina Pulejkova will exhibit pieces incorporating artificial intelligence to explore whether these elements further distance us from our “natural” habitat. Dr. Amy Cutler is an artist, cultural geographer, curator, writer, and filmmaker who works with ideas of geography and nonhuman others. Lewis Davidson creates “new relics” or symbols of the manufactured world resembling an archaeology of the future that feels unliveable. Sanne Vaassen, a recent solo resident with the gallery, presents a conceptual piece, whereby she has let snails feast upon an encyclopaedia of national anthems altering and creating a ‘wild’ world anthem.
In addition, the composer, musician and activist Mileece will conduct a talk and fundraiser around ‘biophilic technologies’, zero-impact energy, network-based urban wilderness sanctuaries inside technologically augmented biodomes, which help to balance our modern lives with the needs and benefits of the biosphere.
Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop is also proud to partake in the Global Climate Strike on 20 September, and will be inviting local and international organisations to participate in a week of “Strike Party” events – details of the schedule to follow.
Participating artists include Vivien Sansour, a writer, conservationist and filmmaker whose work brings to life stories around seeds and soil, which she recently discussed on BBC Radio 4. Daniel Silva creates sculptures that contain seeds, encouraging visitors to take them away from the gallery and to use them to grow plants for much-needed bee pollen. Artist Kristina Pulejkova will exhibit pieces incorporating artificial intelligence to explore whether these elements further distance us from our “natural” habitat. Dr. Amy Cutler is an artist, cultural geographer, curator, writer, and filmmaker who works with ideas of geography and nonhuman others. Lewis Davidson creates “new relics” or symbols of the manufactured world resembling an archaeology of the future that feels unliveable. Sanne Vaassen, a recent solo resident with the gallery, presents a conceptual piece, whereby she has let snails feast upon an encyclopaedia of national anthems altering and creating a ‘wild’ world anthem.
In addition, the composer, musician and activist Mileece will conduct a talk and fundraiser around ‘biophilic technologies’, zero-impact energy, network-based urban wilderness sanctuaries inside technologically augmented biodomes, which help to balance our modern lives with the needs and benefits of the biosphere. Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop is also proud to partake in the Global Climate Strike on 20 September, and will be inviting local and international organisations to participate in a week of “Strike Party” events – details of the schedule to follow.
Dr. Amy Cutler (London, UK, 1985) is an artist, geographer and filmmaker who works with ideas of critical ecology and nonhuman others, often in immersive installations. She has exhibited at the BBC Blue Room, Somerset House, the Natural History Museum, the Wellcome Trust, Tetley Art Gallery, GV Art & Science Gallery, Transfer Gallery NY, St John on Bethnal Green, the Horniman Museum, Late Junction, Super/Collider, Tate Modern, the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, the Horse Hospital, and the Kew Museum of Economic Botany. Cutler runs the touring live cinema show NATURE’S NICKELODEONS at Sheffield Doc/Fest (2018), International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (2018) and San Francisco Green Film Festival (2019). In 2018 her series of improvisatory scores for experimental forest ecology, with Lee Patterson and Barrel, aired as an episode of Late Junction on BBC3.
Lewis Davidson (Stroud, UK, 1990) graduated with a BA in Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art and Design and a MFA Sculpture at Slade School of Fine Art, London in 2019, being an recipient of the Felix Slade Scholarship. Selected exhibitions include: Holiday, Arcade, London, UK, 2018, Catch of the Year, Dienstgebaeude, Zürich, CH, 2017, Crumble Town, SET Space, London, UK, 2017, ART ON CAMPUS, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, AT, 2016, The Observer Effect, GEMAK, The Hague, NL, 2015 and The Open West, The Wilson, Cheltenham, UK, 2014, London/Vienna Calling, Semperdepot, Vienna, AT, 2014.
Rob Kesseler (Solihull, UK, 1951) is an internationally renowned visual artist and Professor of Arts, Design & Science at the University of the Arts London. For the past twenty years he has collaborated with botanical scientists at Kew and other scientific institutions around the world to explore the living world at a microscopic level. His award-winning series of books on Pollen, Seeds and Fruit created with Wolfgang Stuppy and Madeline Harley at Kew, published by Papadakis have stimulated a growing fascination for the microscopic world of plants. Rob Kesseler is a Fellow of the Linnean Society and ambassador for Royal Microscopical Society.
Kristina Pulejkova (Skopje, MK, 1988) is a Macedonian London-based artist whose inter-disciplinary practice is informed by science and technology. She is currently artist in residence at Somerset House Studios, London. Kristina’s works have been shown at the Museum for Contemporary Art, Skopje, MK (solo show); MAK, Vienna, AT; Project Space Kunsthalle, Vienna, AT; Het Glaspaviljoen, Eindhoven, NL; Art COP21 Paris, FR; The Science Museum, London, UK; The V&A, London, UK; Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK and the Art Licks Festival, London UK, Lewisham Art House, London, UK, Royal College of Art amongst others.
Vivien Sansour (Palestine) is a writer, producer and photographer. She is the founder of The Palestine Heirloom Seed Library and the Traveling Kitchen project, both initiatives aim to bring seed heritage back to the dinner table. She holds a BA in Political Science with a minor in Theatre Arts, and an MA in International Studies with a focus in Anthropology from East Carolina University, US. Her feature film The People and the Olive received high acclaim from critics was selected for Chicago International Social Change film festival and the Unspoken Human Rights film festival. As an artist, scholar and conservationist Vivien presented in venues local and global, including SALT Art Center in Istanbul, Berlinale, Georgetown University, Qalandiya Biennale and Columbia University.
Daniel Silva (Bogota, CO, 1981) is a sculptor living and working in London. He graduated from Central Saint Martins with a top of the class distinction in 2014, was the recipient of the Daniel Ford Award for innovation, as well as nominated and shortlisted for the Saatchi New Sensations 2014 Art Prize. In 2015, he was one of the three artists selected to represent CSM in the UAL space at Art15. Selected Exhibitions include WE ARE EXPERIENCING SOME TURBULENCE – PLEASE STOW AWAY YOUR ELECTRONIC DEVICES LHR | HND | BOG | LAX at Baert Gallery, Los Angeles, USA in 2018 and at Outpost-81 in Tokyo, JP.
Sanne Vaassen (Maastricht, NL, 1991) graduated in 2013 from Maastricht Academy Fine Arts & Design, has recently been artist in residence at Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop and is currently the recipient of the Stipend for Established Artists by the Mondriaan Fund. In 2014/2015 she was a resident at the Jan van Eyck Academy. Since then she has contributed to exhibitions at the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Marres, De Pont, Tilburg, Grey Noise, Dubai and 601 Artspace in New York, amongst others. She was nominated for the Sybren Hellinga prize in 2016 and was the winner of the Parkstad Limburg Prize in the same year. She lives and works in Maastricht, NL.
Mileece (London, UK, 1978) is a sonic artist, composer, designer, interactive ecologist and clean energy ambassador. Her debut album of algorithmic music ‘Formations’ (2003), heralded by the BBC as an “outstanding release, real musical science”, marked the beginning of her work as a pioneer in ‘organic electronic music’. In 2006, after creating a hardware bio-data processor and coded ‘aesthetic sonification’ system ‘PiP’ at her residency at the LSE, Mileece began touring her interactive immersive micro-ecology installations and performances at museums (MoMA, NYC, NHM, LA), festivals (Decibel Festival, Seattle, BHIF Festival, Bhutan), and venues (Kew Gardens, London, Sonos Studios, LA).
*Stay tuned for the dynamic workshop/lecture Mileece will be conducting as part of Adjacent Directly.