RADICAL VENTRILOQUISM:ACTS OF SPEAKING FOR & SPEAKING THROUGH
curated by Lee Campbell
13.03.20 – 19.04.20
KELDER Basement of Mercer & Co 26A Chapel Market Islington. London
N1 9PX OPEN: Thu – Sun 12.00 – 17.00 or by appointment
www.kelderprojects.com
Project opening: 12.03.20, 18.30 - 21.00
A series of public events will take place throughout the project.
We are caught, caught in a stream of floating heads: provocative faces preaching divisive politics and spewing universalist values as well as those who meme these voices through a satiric vernacular. One of our fundamental human rights is freedom of speech, the freedom to express ourselves in our own subjective manner. But in a spectacularly tense age, where the complexities of speaking are bound up with far wider socio-cultural politics the question as to how to represent a voice, to articulate a humanity and indeed an identity are constantly being redrawn, attacked, and marred. Is speaking for someone/thing or group always a provocative gesture, limiting their own humanity/identity? What if we redressed the terms of engagement? What if we spoke-through, and communicated via wholly non-human or in-human means? What then?
Against this complex backdrop, KELDER projects are pleased to reboot its 2020 programme, a year focussing on artists engaging with lens and screen-based media, with a refresh of Lee Campbell’s ongoing project Radical Ventriloquism: Acts of Speaking for and Through.
Ventriloquism, in its most common usage, refers to a form of popular entertainment consisting of performers giving voice to inanimate objects through a careful interplay between what is heard and what is seen. With in-human beginnings - the court jester gaining power by speaking through his sceptre - ventriloquists today speak through their puppets as a way of ‘distancing’ themselves from criticism and ownership. But as Karen Harris reminds Campbell ‘it is always about who is telling/performing the joke, as issues regarding power and cultural identity are never far below the surface.’
Building on the 2019 conference stream, co-organised by Christabel Harley and Campbell, Radical Ventriloquism cuts Campbell’s experience as an Academic Support Lecturer, and subsequent research into the ethical tensions created when speaking for someone, out of the academic sphere and pastes this into an exhibitionary setting. Curated by Campbell, the artists brought together use script, film and performance to alter perspectives. Through polyphonic coming-togethers, the project explores alienating processes, deadpan reproductions and power dynamics. In doing so it creates new narratives and introduces new adjacencies that question the position of power and autonomy in the complex notions of ‘speaking for’ and ‘speaking through.’
PUBLIC EVENTS
Thursday 12 March, 18:30-21:00, RECEPTION
Screening of Lee Campbell’s HOW CAN I GET MY PARTNER TO BE MY FINGER? (2019), followed by a number of performances and drink reception.
Alexander Costello
Lee Campbell
Claire Makhlouf Carter
Tuesday 17 March, 18:00-21:00. SCRIPT ACTS
Multiple-voice readings from Leap into Action: Critical Performative Pedagogies in Art & Design (Campbell, 2020).
Laura Davidson
Peter Bond
Adrian Lee
Claire Makhlouf Carter
Cathy Gale
Lee Campbell
Pauline de Souza
Gustave J Weltsek
Thursday 2 April, 18:00-21:00. PERFORMANCE ACTS
An evening of intimate performances.
Victoria Ahrens
Claire Makhlouf Carter
Adrian Lee
Alexander Costello
Lee Campbell
Hällsten and O'Neill
Saturday 18 April, 15:00-18:00. FILM ACTS & DISCUSSION
A series of public screenings followed by a public discussion with artists/filmmakers participating in Radical Ventriloquism led by Lee Campbell.
Beagles and Ramsay
Jake Shannon
Common Culture
Lee Campbell
All KELDER Projects’ events are free and open to all! For more information please contact [log in to unmask]
KELDER is a curatorial project space that aims to expand on traditional modes of display and in turn offer up alternative ways of disseminating contemporary art. Founded as a non-profit organisation by Rudi Christian Ferreira and Adriënne Groen in 2016, KELDER is generously supported by Mercer & Co.
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