Becoming Creature with Zoë Marden
Saturday, 18 November
14:00pm - 15:30pm
Becoming Creature is a special screening of Marden's diverse film and performance work. Three of Marden's films will be presented: her short film Becoming Creature, which won Best Experimental Film at the London Independent Film Awards and the Art Film Awards Poland as well as Best First Time Female Director at the LA Independent Short Awards, an excerpt of Marden's performance lecture Mermania~ Tales of Tentacularity (the tentacles of covid capitalism) a work in progress... which was made for the Gasworks during the summer of 2020, and lastly, Marden will also be sharing unseen footage of her collaborative performance piece Becoming The Wild Thing, a performance commissioned by Tai Kwun Contemporary Hong Kong and Sunpride Foundation for the exhibition Myth Makers — Spectrosynthesis III. Following the screenings, Marden will be in conversation with writer and journalist Amelia Abraham.
The screening is organised as part of the Tabula Rasa: Unveiled group show by Tabula Rasa Gallery, currently on view at No.9 Cork Street.
Zoë Marden is an artist, filmmaker, and writer from Hong Kong, currently based in London. She graduated from the Royal College of Art’s Moving Image MA in 2018 and works with performance, video, text, sound, sculpture and installation to create alternate worlds and speculative futures. Her research-focused works are concerned with Posthuman Feminisms and where they overlap with the postcolonial. Her intimate performances play with the voice by activating soundscapes of desire and vulnerability. Recent projects have investigated the mythologies of witches and mermaids and their resonance within contemporary culture. She is part of the CAMPerVAN collective which has been active since 2016. CAMPerVAN is a nomadic queer performance platform that can be deployed anywhere in the world to bring performance art, film screening, panel discussion & workshop into the public realm.
Marden’s recent solo exhibitions include HADAL ZONE, Roman Road, London (2023) Becoming Creature, Kong Art Space, Hong Kong (2023); and Marine Lovers...their fishy beginnings, V.O. Curations, London (2021). Selected recent group exhibitions and performances include: Living A Performance Artist's Life, MadeIn Museum, Shanghai (2023); Under Blue Shade, Roman Road, London (2023), Becoming The Wild Thing, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022); Becoming Creature, Tabula Rasa Gallery, London (2022); Born to make you happy, The Residence Gallery, London (2022); Queer to the Bank, Galleria Fonti, Naples (2021-2022); AORA:IV, Urbanism, London (2021), SomoS, Berlin (2020); and Stay LIVE at Home, Performistanbul (2020). Remember the Liquid Ground, Gasworks, London (2020), Grounded, Coastal Currents Arts Festival, 2020; Gaze to the UNKNOWN, Mimosa House, London, 2019; between Aeaea and the rocks of Scylla, The Horse Hospital, London, 2019; AMY/YMA, Serpentine Gallery, London, (2019) Unbothered + Moisturised, Eaton Workshop, Hong Kong, (2019), Equinox Light Cure, Exposed Arts, London, (2019).
Amelia Abraham (she/they) is a writer and editor from London. Abraham contributes to Art Review, AnOther, The Guardian, LRB and other publications, and has authored two books on LGBTQ+ culture and politics, including; Queer Intentions: A (Personal) Journey Through LGBTQ+ Culture (Picador, 2019) and We Can Do Better Than This (Vintage, 2021). Abraham also speaks on LGBTQ+ rights and diversity in the media for cultural institutions.