It's Offal

The exhibition plays on opposing ideas of seduction and repulsion, by rejoicing in these base instincts 'It's Offal' hopes to evoke a cathartic freedom and re-engagement with our bodies, in a world where perfect isn't good enough.

From excrement to innards, It's Offal looks at the work of artists who have chosen to explore what lies within. A guttural festivity that triggers questions about who and what we really are, our fears and desires, and what we value in the end. The inner body and its distortions are presented in photographs, films, performances, sculptures and paintings in order to expose, reflect and celebrate the sludge and flow of life.

It's Offal splices together historical examples including Helen Chadwick's sensual Meat Abstracts, Tony Morgan's collaborative film, Beefsteak Resurrection and Gina Pane's complex and bloody body actions as well as contemporary paintings, sculptures and video works including including 'Fluence' by Fritha Jenkins, a meaty book of paintings by Anna Jung Seo and a performance lecture from Michael Archer.

THE SYMPOSIUM

Readings, Performances and Poetry by

Michael Archer, Emily Austin, Patrick Brandon,Phil Cairney, Fritha Jenkins and Joseph Morgan Schofield

along with Tea and cake !

Book Tickets here. Linited availabilty

Days, not many miles from here but in another world, Michael Archer spent some years studying the physiology of the brain, liver, kidney, heart, lungs, and the small and large intestine. While he doesn't do this nowadays, he continues to carry those organs about with him on a daily basis. For Offal Michael will present a text on Countercurrent Multiplication.

Emily Austin from Austin/Desmond Fine Art discusses the use of blood, guts and gore as well as it's socio political context in works by artists Helen Chadwick, Gina Pane and Hermann Nitsch amongst others...

Patrick Brandon, an award winning poet, responds to artworks in 'It's Offal' in poems written and performed for this event.

Philip Cairney is a filmmaker and writer. His film 'Residual Zones' explores the offcuts on the cutting room floor -- fluffs, pauses, repetitions and re-framings -- spaces created during filming but deemed surplus to the final product.

Fritha Jenkins will perform part of her 'Fluence' commission cleaning the floor as visitors arrive. The left over waste water will form part of the exhibition. Fritha will be discussing the evolution of the commission, Fluence' with Ivo Oliveira who she met whilst he was working as a research assistant at the Wales Centre of Excellence for Anaerobic Digestion. Ivo has recently completed his PhD at the University of South Wales on the topic of digested sludge dewatering.

Joseph Morgan Schofield is an emerging live artist and club performer. He creates queer 'rituals' that interrogate vulnerability, pain, loss, trauma and memory. For It's Offal he will perform RAM (working title), a retelling of the Biblical Sacrifice of Isaac that considers personal and collective histories of suffering, particularly in relation to grief and depression.