Soft-Shell, 2023
translucent silicone rubber, condensation cure silicone, white pigment, tiles, adhesive, plywood & snails.
Soft-Shell is a site-specific work that takes casts of architectural features (a sink and gutter-way/wet-room cove skirting) in an empty chapel and mortuary. The piece functions as a relic, embalming or skinning of the space, which was used for the storage and preservation of human bodies before their disposal. The use of silicon rubber is purposeful in Soft-Shell: a material used for medical implants, procedures, and funereal practices. The tiled structure (inferring both autopsy and tomb) offers an interface with cooling temperatures, as analogous with the process of algor mortis. It also provides a seemingly impermeable barrier, one which is water-tight as to contain seepage. Here, parallels can be made between the plumbing of the mortuary (the basins and pipes), and the body which, after death, becomes liquescent, as ‘slippage’ of our skin begins, and tissues percolate from our orifices. Once passed, we collectively drain and pool, participating in a hermaphroditic condition that sees no separation of matter: no partition of the human and non-human, along with other reductive binaries. In recognition, Sharples co-operates with a walk of snails, hermaphroditic animals, in support of this trans-formation and material exchange. In nod of the scalloped shell symbolising re-birth in Christianity, Sharples offers another emblem of the shelled gastropod as to signify our transfused constitution.
Shown as part of the exhibition & symposium An Elastic Continuum at S1 Artspace, Sheffield.
Photographs: James Clarkson.
translucent silicone rubber, condensation cure silicone, white pigment, tiles, adhesive, plywood & snails.
Soft-Shell is a site-specific work that takes casts of architectural features (a sink and gutter-way/wet-room cove skirting) in an empty chapel and mortuary. The piece functions as a relic, embalming or skinning of the space, which was used for the storage and preservation of human bodies before their disposal. The use of silicon rubber is purposeful in Soft-Shell: a material used for medical implants, procedures, and funereal practices. The tiled structure (inferring both autopsy and tomb) offers an interface with cooling temperatures, as analogous with the process of algor mortis. It also provides a seemingly impermeable barrier, one which is water-tight as to contain seepage. Here, parallels can be made between the plumbing of the mortuary (the basins and pipes), and the body which, after death, becomes liquescent, as ‘slippage’ of our skin begins, and tissues percolate from our orifices. Once passed, we collectively drain and pool, participating in a hermaphroditic condition that sees no separation of matter: no partition of the human and non-human, along with other reductive binaries. In recognition, Sharples co-operates with a walk of snails, hermaphroditic animals, in support of this trans-formation and material exchange. In nod of the scalloped shell symbolising re-birth in Christianity, Sharples offers another emblem of the shelled gastropod as to signify our transfused constitution.
Shown as part of the exhibition & symposium An Elastic Continuum at S1 Artspace, Sheffield.
Photographs: James Clarkson.
An Elastic Continuum, 2023
An international group exhibition at S1 Artspace, Sheffield. Curated by NMRG co-leads Sharples & Rebecca Howard.
Arriving from the proposition of ‘skin’, An Elastic Continuum offers an interface with skinnings: surfaces, architectural structures, organisms, membranes and embalmings. The works on show present a plethora of intersectional readings that transect ontologies of animacy and the sensorial, biotechnical interventions (birth, growth, ailment, and death), human, animal and plant bodies, and spaces of trans-ition, whether -gender, -species or interior-exterior relations).
Featuring: Simon Carter, Grace Clifford, Craig Fisher, Helen Hamilton, Rebecca Howard, Sinéad Kempley, Victoria Sharples, Emily Speed, Rose Hedy Squires, Rachel Stanley, Lucy Vann, Henriette Von Muenchhausen & Nathan Walker.
Funded by University of Derby’s Early-Career Researcher Development Fund. The title is used with kind permission from presenting artist Bethan Hughes.
Photographs: James Clarkson.
An international group exhibition at S1 Artspace, Sheffield. Curated by NMRG co-leads Sharples & Rebecca Howard.
Arriving from the proposition of ‘skin’, An Elastic Continuum offers an interface with skinnings: surfaces, architectural structures, organisms, membranes and embalmings. The works on show present a plethora of intersectional readings that transect ontologies of animacy and the sensorial, biotechnical interventions (birth, growth, ailment, and death), human, animal and plant bodies, and spaces of trans-ition, whether -gender, -species or interior-exterior relations).
Featuring: Simon Carter, Grace Clifford, Craig Fisher, Helen Hamilton, Rebecca Howard, Sinéad Kempley, Victoria Sharples, Emily Speed, Rose Hedy Squires, Rachel Stanley, Lucy Vann, Henriette Von Muenchhausen & Nathan Walker.
Funded by University of Derby’s Early-Career Researcher Development Fund. The title is used with kind permission from presenting artist Bethan Hughes.
Photographs: James Clarkson.
An Elastic Continuum, 2023
An international symposium at S1 Artspace, Sheffield. Curated by NMRG co-leads Sharples & Rebecca Howard.
Arriving from the proposition of ‘skin’, An Elastic Continuum offers an interface with skinnings: surfaces, architectural structures, organisms, membranes and embalmings. The works on show present a plethora of intersectional readings that transect ontologies of animacy and the sensorial, biotechnical interventions (birth, growth, ailment, and death), human, animal and plant bodies, and spaces of trans-ition, whether -gender, -species or interior-exterior relations).
Featuring: Ellie Barrett, Bethan Hughes, Sinéad Kempley, Victoria Lucas, Stephanie Rushton.
Funded by University of Derby’s Early-Career Researcher Development Fund. The title is used with kind permission from presenting artist Bethan Hughes.
Photographs: James Clarkson.
An international symposium at S1 Artspace, Sheffield. Curated by NMRG co-leads Sharples & Rebecca Howard.
Arriving from the proposition of ‘skin’, An Elastic Continuum offers an interface with skinnings: surfaces, architectural structures, organisms, membranes and embalmings. The works on show present a plethora of intersectional readings that transect ontologies of animacy and the sensorial, biotechnical interventions (birth, growth, ailment, and death), human, animal and plant bodies, and spaces of trans-ition, whether -gender, -species or interior-exterior relations).
Featuring: Ellie Barrett, Bethan Hughes, Sinéad Kempley, Victoria Lucas, Stephanie Rushton.
Funded by University of Derby’s Early-Career Researcher Development Fund. The title is used with kind permission from presenting artist Bethan Hughes.
Photographs: James Clarkson.
Gurney, 2023
condensation cure silicone, steel, plywood & caster wheels.
Gurney is a composite sculpture made using silicone rubber and steel. It is a companion piece to the site-specific work: Soft-Shell (2023), each featuring a cast from one side of a double-sink taken from a church and mortuary in Sheffield. The work functions as a positive-negative imprint of the space, an embalming, relic and architectural ‘skinning’. In nod to quantum field theory’s understanding that matter is ‘a condensation of other beings, places, and times’ (Barad, 2015, p. 416), condensation cure silicone acts as a material prompt. Here, the trans-migration of bodies is materially observed (as with putrefaction, ossification), as are sites of trans-ition and trans-ience (chapels, mortuaries, and space-time matterings).
Exhibited as part of the Residency & Group Exhibition: Testing Ground (with GLOAM co-directors: Stu Burke, Rose Hedy Squires, Thomas Lee Griffiths & Victoria Sharples) at Serf, Leeds.
condensation cure silicone, steel, plywood & caster wheels.
Gurney is a composite sculpture made using silicone rubber and steel. It is a companion piece to the site-specific work: Soft-Shell (2023), each featuring a cast from one side of a double-sink taken from a church and mortuary in Sheffield. The work functions as a positive-negative imprint of the space, an embalming, relic and architectural ‘skinning’. In nod to quantum field theory’s understanding that matter is ‘a condensation of other beings, places, and times’ (Barad, 2015, p. 416), condensation cure silicone acts as a material prompt. Here, the trans-migration of bodies is materially observed (as with putrefaction, ossification), as are sites of trans-ition and trans-ience (chapels, mortuaries, and space-time matterings).
Exhibited as part of the Residency & Group Exhibition: Testing Ground (with GLOAM co-directors: Stu Burke, Rose Hedy Squires, Thomas Lee Griffiths & Victoria Sharples) at Serf, Leeds.
Roo Dhissou: Courses for Dis-Course(s), 2023
Curated by Sharples.
Dhissou conjured up space for dining, eating, cooking and gathering. The project included a series of exhibitions and dining events for British South Asian artists. The exhibition explored who gets a seat at the table, the politics of orthodoxies, the art space, the home, the kitchen and the gallery by presenting a new body of sculptural, functional and architectural works that employ a variety of British Asian visual languages, culinary traditions and materiality. Langar Thalis inlaid with gut health tips, Cha stations, posh tea sets, Manjis, Rugs, Yoga Mats, seed charts, tablecloths embroidered with political and theoretical texts. Questioning how hosting through conviviality, cooking, eating together and conversation can create complex spaces for complaint, lament, bonding, stickiness, nuance, and the opportunity to be both comfortable and discomforted in our differences, similarities and oppositions. Courses for Dis-Course(s) was a partnership led by artist Roo Dhissou, GLOAM (Sheffield) and Primary (Nottingham), as part of Primary’s Nourishment programme, a long-term project that delves into food justice, nourishment, growing and sustainable food systems. With thanks to: 5tara, Kavitha Balasingham, Miranda Corral, Modern Clay, Fred Hubble, Tom Harris, Rebecca Beinart, Jade Foster, Colette Griffin. This project was supported by Arts Council England.
Photographs: Sancha
Curated by Sharples.
Dhissou conjured up space for dining, eating, cooking and gathering. The project included a series of exhibitions and dining events for British South Asian artists. The exhibition explored who gets a seat at the table, the politics of orthodoxies, the art space, the home, the kitchen and the gallery by presenting a new body of sculptural, functional and architectural works that employ a variety of British Asian visual languages, culinary traditions and materiality. Langar Thalis inlaid with gut health tips, Cha stations, posh tea sets, Manjis, Rugs, Yoga Mats, seed charts, tablecloths embroidered with political and theoretical texts. Questioning how hosting through conviviality, cooking, eating together and conversation can create complex spaces for complaint, lament, bonding, stickiness, nuance, and the opportunity to be both comfortable and discomforted in our differences, similarities and oppositions. Courses for Dis-Course(s) was a partnership led by artist Roo Dhissou, GLOAM (Sheffield) and Primary (Nottingham), as part of Primary’s Nourishment programme, a long-term project that delves into food justice, nourishment, growing and sustainable food systems. With thanks to: 5tara, Kavitha Balasingham, Miranda Corral, Modern Clay, Fred Hubble, Tom Harris, Rebecca Beinart, Jade Foster, Colette Griffin. This project was supported by Arts Council England.
Photographs: Sancha
