Curved Space was an exhibition of new works by artists Holly Buckle, Kristīne Daukšte, Lisa-Marie Harris and Bryan Giuseppi Rodriguez Cambana, marking the culmination of a year-long residency with London-based arts organisation, Acme. The title of this exhibition directly refers to the curvature of their shared studio at Acme’s Warton House, where the four artists have been in residency since January 2022. Artists selected for Acme’s early career programme are invited without thematic restrictions, bringing a group of artists together to share a space, time, and conversation over the course of a year.

While each of the artists’ work is informed by their own perspective and processes, their work shares an interest in, and negotiation of, how communal space is navigated. In discussing their work, Gaston Bachelard’s 1958 book, The Poetics of Space, is frequently referred to; a philosophical theory that proposes all spaces – architectural and imagined – embody meaning, feeling and memory for those occupying them and that space, in turn, evokes thoughts, attitudes and meaning dependant on an individual’s lived experience.

Throughout the exhibition the works question the visibility and invisibility of bodies in communal, institutional, and social spaces. In Buckle’s collaborative project they explore collective experiences of members of The Outside Projects, London's LGBTIQ+ Community Shelter, Centre and Domestic Abuse Refuge, while Daukšte’s work highlights the audience’s relationship to negotiating space, both inside and outside the gallery. Harris’ sculpture and video works examine the body as a contested and commodified site, and Rodriguez Cambana’s moving image installation reflects on migrant communities' experience of displacement as a context and as ‘world-building’, through acts of love and collaboration.

Curved Space marks the seventh iteration of Acme and Peer’s partnership supporting the work of early-career artists. The artists included have recently participated in a yearlong studio residency at Acme’s Warton House, London, in 2022.


Biographies:

Holly Buckle (Adrian Carruthers Award, 2021/22) works across a wide range of media, including audio, installation, publication, photography, and textiles. The core concern of their practice is centred on queer bodies, using research, participation, and performance to examine queer pasts, look to the future and take action today. Collectivity is a strong theme within Buckle’s work and for their exhibition at Peer, they will be presenting a project produced in collaboration with members of The Outside Project, an LGBTIQ+ community centre and shelter, based in London. Consisting of tapestry, audio work and a publication, this work reflects on the collective experiences of The Outside Project’s members, particularly in relation to the old fire station building in Clerkenwell , which the group have since vacated and the importance of having a braver space to gather. instagram.com/stickypicnic

Kristīne Daukšte (Helen Scott Lidgett Award, 2021/22) explores our relation to space during moments of conflict, whether that be conflict with oneself, others, cultures, social norms, or space itself. She is interested in how human bodies experience, relate, and react to space and the objects within it. Daukšte’s practice creates semi-fictional spaces by reimagining objects through the deconstruction of their materiality. For her presentation at Peer Daukšte has created a new installation that will encourage viewers to question one's own attitudes to space and body. The work will aim to create an environment that supports reflection on our own connection to actual and theoretical layers within objects and concepts in society. instagram.com/daukstekristine

Lisa-Marie Harris (Helen Scott Lidgett Award, 2021/22) works across sculptural installation, canvas, film and publishing, to address dehumanisation by positioning the body as a thing. She pursues this through an objectification, capitalistic extraction, and commoditisation of body parts, sensations, and emotional experiences.  Harris’s work is informed by a personal history of motherhood and reproduction; by Trinidadian culture, spirituality and ecology; and by migration. By breaking apart and reconstituting the body in her work, Harris frames the body as a contested space that is prized, coveted, and sought to be owned. For her presentation at Peer, Harris will be showing new work developed in response to a recent trip across the eroded back-roads of Trinidad's Central wetlands. instagram.com/lisa.marie.harris

Bryan Giuseppi Rodriguez Cambana (Goldsmiths MFA award, 2021/22)  uses video installation, film, and performance to reflect on the theatrics that could interpret, process, and decipher Afro-diasporic and indigenous histories. Using personal narratives and fluid frameworks of communities, he stages actions within fabricated environments. Often grounded in the everyday while addressing issues of displacement, his work questions themes such as – authenticity and commodification of Black and indigenous people. Building on his ongoing interest in communities, Rodriguez Cambana will present a new video installation developed in collaboration with local performers and Hoxton Hall gesturing to migrant communities’ experiences of ‘world-building’.  For Aquí Tú No Existes, shown in the exhibition, Rodriguez Cambana gathered a group of London based performers from both music and theatre backgrounds to engage in conversation inside an empty Hoxton Hall, imagining the final stretch of an after-party kiki. instagram.com/bryangiusepi

Acme’s early career programme provides artists in their first five years of practice with a variety of support structures, including bursaries, rent relief, professional development, mentoring, presentation and exhibition opportunities. The programme aims to make a substantial intervention at critical moments in artists’ careers.

The Goldsmiths MFA Award is a partnership between Acme and Goldsmiths, University of London, generously supported by Jane Hamlyn. The Adrian Carruthers Award is a partnership between Acme and The Slade School of Fine Art, funded by Acme and the Adrian Carruthers Memorial Fund. The Helen Scott Lidgett Award is a partnership between Acme, Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London), Art Academy of Latvia and the family of Helen Scott Lidgett. In 2022, Acme launched the new Acme Alternative Pathway Awards, a Genesis Kickstart Fund project supported by the Genesis Foundation.

Acme was founded by artists, for artists, in 1972. They support the development and production of art by reducing the practical challenges that artists face, increasing their ability to take creative risks.