ANDROMEDAN SAD GIRL

Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn, Cambridge, 2017

Andromedan Sad Girl is a collaborative exhibition by artists Florence Peake and Tai Shani. Drawing on their research into structures of feminism, their immersive installation is an imagining of what a pre- or post-patriarchal site could be. Peake and Shani are interested in exploring the fluid mythologies and imagined futures of lost civilizations. The artists take an archaeological excavation as a point of departure to imagine and represent non-hierarchal, pre-historical or futuristic civilizations, imagined through ambitious new sculptural works and wall paintings.

Drawing on her performance practice, Peake has collaborated with dancer Eve Stainton to generate the new fresco/wall paintings. By drawing around each other’s bodies on the horizontal surface, before painting on the panels vertically, the work suggests a plurality of abstract embodiment and vibrating temporality. Tai Shani’s work occupies the central gallery space and frames the gallery entrance with vibrant symbolic sculptures; technicolour, psychedelic interpretations of mystical objects and ritualistic architecture.

A soundscape accompanies the exhibition, with vocals from Florence Peake and produced in collaboration with composer Maxwell Sterling, suggests a pre-linguistic dimension where speech is not yet acquired, but open.

 Photos: Wilf Speller