Helen Chadwick, Phoebe Collings-James, Charles and Ray Eames, Eva Fàbregas, Shana Moulton, Poppy Nash, Tai Shani, Laura Wilson.
Exploring the ways in which our bodies encounter and process our environments, this exhibition looks at digestive systems on a micro and macro level. We dig in and out of deep time, excavating histories of food and the gut, from the interior of the body, to the systems of a city or the ecologies of a landscape. IN-SIDE-OUT-SIDE-IN is structured around Ladybower, a new sculptural installation designed by Laura Wilson.
Bi-secting the gallery into internal and external spaces, the sculpture is inspired by the two circular spillways which regulate the water levels in the Ladybower reservoir and supply water to Sheffield. Following the curve of the fibonacci sequence and reminiscent of a Greek Amphitheatre, Ladybower is the central stage and set for Gutted, a new body of work by Laura Wilson. Gutted is a script, performance, audio and installation investigating gut processes, instincts and ecosystems; from digestion inside our bodies to landscape-scale infrastructure and archaeological digs. Bringing to life digestive processes and encouraging us to consider how we think and feel through our stomachs, the work takes the idea of the hole as both an entry and exit point, a barrier between the inside and outside, it can be a portal between worlds – it consumes, and it vomits.
Expanding upon these themes, the exhibition includes works by internationally renowned artists alongside archival material. Circles and systems are depicted in Helen Chadwick’s Loop my Loop, a light box photograph featuring golden locks of hair intertwined with a pig’s intestine and Phoebe Collings-James’ Don’t despair (infinity loop). Sculptural works and drawings by Eva Fàbregas and Tai Shani echo bodily forms, slumped on the floor and suspended from the ceiling, portals to the inside. Ideas around health, wellness and contemporary attitudes to illness run through Shana Moulton’s Mindplace Thoughtstream and Poppy Nash’s Art of Dying 2.0. Nash’s work acts as a Vomitorium in the exhibition, a tube connecting the softer internal space to the more architectural external space. Work by Charles and Ray Eames, sits alongside archival material from Picture Sheffield and University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections to show the loops and systems of the city alongside the body.
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Curated by Site Gallery’s Robyn Haddon and Angelica Sule with artist Laura Wilson.
