Exhibitions: Elsewhere(s)

Elsewhere(s) is at various sites in the city centre until 15th June

‘Elsewhere(s)’ is the overall project title for a series of exhibitions and site-specific installations curated by students on the MA Curation course at University of Exeter. This year, you can see work at Unit 5 (former Body Shop) in the Guildhall Shopping Centre, We Are (former Topshop) in Princesshay Shopping Centre, and at Positive Light Projects on Sidwell Street – in combination, the work explores what it takes to feel ‘at home’ in a place such as Exeter, including the personal experience of being an outsider within a dominant cultural context.

Installed in the empty unit in the Guildhall, ‘Journey to the West’ is inspired by one of China’s four great classical novels, Journey to the West, and is a vibrant celebration of Chinese contemporary art. Curators Zitong Shan, Xiaotong Tang, Zhang Kailing, Zhang Zhuoran and Zhu Xuebing have done a wonderful job in the space. Featuring calligraphy (try it as part of the hands-on workshops), paper-cutting, shadow puppetry and traditional Chinese painting, it’s an immersive, vivid experience. My photos did not do it justice, so make sure to get along.

Work by Ren Yinlai, a Chinese shadow puppet artist dedicated to ushering in a new era for Cao County shadow puppetry.

Over at We Are (former Topshop) in Princesshay, there’s a lively mix of photography and installation, as well as the chance to upcycle some clothing (instructions and help provided!). The works are well sited here – We Are’s ethos is very much about promoting the secondhand, sustainable, reuse culture – as they pose questions about how we live now.

I was particularly taken with David Spero’s photographic series Settlements, curated by Helena David. Documenting off-grid communities across the UK, the photos provide a tantalising glimpse into alternative ways of living. These land-based communities include self-built homes and structures, the people committed to engaging with the land in as sustainable and low-impact ways as possible. The structures seem to melt into their surroundings, echoing their organic, hand-crafted nature. A testament to living with the land.

David Spero, The Longhouse communal space and new kitchen. Steward Community Woodland, Devon, November 2004

‘Demand or Desire’ features sculptures, videos and photographs by the artists Jeremy Hutchison and Wenyao Mao, curated by Yang Xu and Yifei Zhu. These works look at the increasingly rampant consumerism of modern society, where shopping seems to have moved beyond necessity into fetish.

‘Armoured Bodies’, curated by Ella Bradbury and Sophia Foster, features work by Filipino-American artist Stephanie Syjuco and Birmingham arts-based collective Calico, that encourage us to consider relationships between the body, clothing, safety and agency. An installation by Syjuco, originally shown in 2009, has been reframed as Anti-Factory Exeter, allowing the audience to engage in a sewing factory activity. The video Look Sharp by Calico confronts the needle spiking epidemic and the British government’s inaction towards making spiking a criminal offence. The artists made the work in furious response to victim-blaming suggestions that clubbers wear denim and leather in order to better protect themselves.

In ‘Home Truths’, curated by Irena Heppard, textile artist Jennifer Jones’s fabric hangings are intimate ‘snapshots’ of domestic life. In ‘Burnthouse Lane’, curated by MHB, Sara Fajardo, Tong Dai and Xiaoqi Liu, artist Michelle Sank explores the concept of ‘home’ through her photographs of the famous Exeter estate.

Over at Positive Light Projects on Sidwell Street, ‘Delicious Poison’ – curated by Kelan Dong and Hua Pang – features the work of Pei-Ying Lin, who explores the relationship between humans and non-human life, especially focusing on viruses as part of our shared environment. Her project Virophilia, exhibited here, imagines a future ‘virus-based’ cuisine, highlighting the extent to which pollution enters our bodies through the foods we consume. A poster and nearby pens invite us to consider and record which virus has ‘impressed’ us…

‘Herself and Surrounding’ exhibits the work of Urmi Roy, a Bangladeshi visual artist whose practice engages with the lived experiences and cultural identities of Bengali women. The pieces here, combining printmaking and acrylic mixed media, are gorgeous, lush depictions of the often unseen labour of women within the domestic sphere. Curated by Meng Hao, Yifan Wu and Jiarong Zhou, the work is beautifully presented.

Urmi Roy, Boro Boudir Hensel, The Kitchen of my Elder Sister-in-Law, 2016, acrylic on canvas