Xhibit 2023: from / now / on

Xhibit 2023

from / now / on Championing Future Creatives

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Preface

Dray Walk Gallery Dray Walk London E1 6QL

Championing Future Creatives Karina Abramova Temitope Adebowale Nibras Al-Salman Rihanata Bigey Adam Cole Eva Dixon Ana Flores Chiara Gandini Sarah Jane Hender Natasha Husain Keyannah Isaacs Xuanran Jo Lukas Leisinger Min Liang Lauren McNicoll Scarlett Morrow Phillip Rhys Olney Amaya Powers-Fernandez Amy Powell Ramakaushalyan Ramakrishnan Unza Saleem Ciana Taylor Ella Trott Jessica Jennebach Varela

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Ajun Yao, Hazel Dong, Yingzi Wu Shan Yun Yu

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Xhibit returns for its 26th year, expanding on a legacy that sees Arts SU continue to programme the longest-running exhibition open call opportunity for students at University of the Arts, London.

Initiated by students for students, we feel Xhibit symbolises the ongoing need to respond to, listen to and value student-led creativity and ideas if we’re to improve their practice and career opportunities.

Valuing both practice-based and professional development, we see Xhibit as a journey towards better exhibition understanding, visibility and representation.

selection panel, exhibition-making creative guidance, a place in the Xhibit catalogue, the chance to sell their work through our Made in Arts, London sales platform and to contribute to a live events programme, and a place in the final Xhibit exhibition.

We are very honoured to have worked with a dedicated selection panel to choose the works on show, comprising Minna Ellis (CSM Sabbatical Officer), Joe Hill (Director, Towner Eastbourne), Kim Hughes (CCW Sabbatical Officer) and Tim A. Shaw (Co-Founder, Hospital Rooms).

Each selection judge brought their own vision and artistic expertise to the panel, with particular appreciation shown for artistic practice in light of post-Covid recovery, continuing Brexit negotiations and a cost of living crisis.

For the last three years we have recruited a student to curate the exhibition, and Xhibit 2023 is curated

by Sarah Winski, an MA Curating and Collections student studying at Chelsea College of Art. Please read on for her overarching theoretical ideas and curatorial approach, with each page beyond providing an introduction to each of the practices selected.

Selected artists for Xhibit receive personalised feedback from the

arts-su.com/xhibit

Our 2023 exhibition is at Dray Walk Gallery, a space set within the heart of the creative East End and part of the larger Truman Brewery complex – an organisation that has championed early stage and emergent artistic practice through their Free Range programme since 2001.

Sophie Risner Arts Programmer Arts SU

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Curatorial Statement

from / now / on Returning for its 26th year, Xhibit remains the longest-running open call exhibition for University of the Arts, London students. This year’s Xhibit cohort covers vast and exciting ground across themes of crisis, multiplicity, possibility, immigration and family. Their practices are multidisciplinary and generative, presenting new modes of observation, speculation and experience.

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The 26 works were selected from over 270 submissions, by a panel including Joe Hill, Director of Towner Eastbourne, Tim A. Shaw, Co-Founder of Hospital Rooms and sabbatical officers Minna Ellis (CSM) and Kim Hughes (CCW). Xhibit remains committed to representing the diversity of artistic disciplines across the university, from Foundation, BA and MA Fine Art practice, Creative Computing, Costume Design, Fashion Film, Photography, Textiles and Ceramic Design.

Xhibit 2023 will be hosted at the Dray Walk Gallery, a 1,456-square-foot exhibition space off Brick Lane.

The works in Xhibit 2023 probe political, social, bodily and creative inheritances and, taken together, unsettle our visions of the past, present and future.

Family is a strong theme in this year’s show, becoming a site, resource and

metaphor for artistic practice.

Natasha Husain (BA Graphic Design) charts her family’s immigration from Pakistan to England in the 1960s and 70s, teasing out universal family dynamics within the context of an exceptional personal history. For Phillip Rhys Olney (MA Fine Art), an installation of his grandfather’s shed similarly tests the limits of space as a vessel of social, political and familial legacies. Temitope Adebowale (BA Fine Art) and Amaya Powers-Fernandez (BA Fine Art) present tender portraits of family members, each capturing a relationship more than a figure, where viewers are entrusted with a glimpse into the intimate bond between mother and child, sister and sister.

Works by Nibras Al-Salman (BA Ceramic Design), Xuanran Jo's and Min Liang (both MA Costume Design for Performance) experiment with the storytelling potential of ceramic and costume, interpreting the classic stories of Don Quixote, The Tempest and Bluebeard’s Castle. Jo’s garment reflects the character development of Prospera but also encourages the wearer to move rhythmically, creating a kinetic manifestation of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter.

Similarly blurring spatial and linguistic poetry, in Ciana Taylor’s (BA Fine Art) video work, a spoken poem slowly unravels the imagery – and vice versa – taking

a form as complex as the themes within it.

Materiality, creation and imagined futures form the basis of works

by Adam Cole (MSC Creative Computing), Chiara Gandini (BA Textiles) and Karina Abramova (MA Applied Imagination). Cole merges AI technology and classic Hollywood imagery to grotesque effect. The resultant work is a cyclical composition wherein our exclusionary understandings of the present are further distorted by an imperfectly rendered digital future. Gandini and Abramova offer alternative visions of this future, the former an imaginative image of a body evolved in response to the demands of a resource-scarce world, while Abramova explores the real-world generative potential of digital renderings of sacredness and ecology. Her video work, also Xhibit’s first NFT, evokes a meditative kind of peace alongside a positive vision of the (real) world that could be.

The works mentioned represent only a portion of all the practices within the exhibition, and we look forward to welcoming you to the show this April.

Sarah Winski Xhibit Student Curator 2023

Curator Biography Sarah Winski (she/her) is the selected curator for Xhibit 2023. Currently studying on the MA Curating and Collections course at Chelsea College of Art, Winski’s current research investigates new modes of expressing complexity and embracing ambiguity in curatorial practice – more specifically, experimenting with content/subject as a framework of form.

Previous to her time at Chelsea, Winski completed a BA in Chinese, focusing on philosophy, literature and art history. As a Research Fellow at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, she studied traditional Chinese and Tibetan Medicine collections to develop an understanding of aesthetic and philosophical developments. Through this, she came to view the collection as a microcosm of the history of trade routes, diaspora populations, care practices and the enduring qualities of plant-human relationships.

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Tulum | Karina Abramova / Las Palmas Doradas

Tulum

by Karina Abramova / Las Palmas Doradas MA Applied Imagination, Central Saint Martins

karinabramova@gmail.com

@thekarina_a

laspalmasdoradas.com

Linktree: linktr.ee/thekarina The beach along the Sian Ka’an biosphere reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Centre some 15km south of Tulum, Mexico, is full of dead corals and thousands of pieces of plastic washed in by the sea. Imagine an alternative reality where you could enjoy a sunrise in the meditative perfection of a clean beach.

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Karina Abramova is an eco-art activist and a changemaker futurist. Each artwork is a vehicle of ecological awareness and environmental action, emerging as a visceral, emotional response to encounters with natural degradation in the Yucatán peninsula. She is now actively fundraising for a mangrove restoration project there.

Abramova blends natural objects, climate literacy, disruptive technologies, community engagement and environmental action with indigenous wisdom, shamanic meaning-making and nature connection techniques. Her work tells a climate story and urges more support for nature-positive actions. She sees emerging technologies as imagination tools with which we can rally people to care for the planet. The NFTs offer an alternative reality to what could be, offering hope rather than climate hopelessness. She yearns to take people away from screens and into nature.

Abramova’s first solo show was at Holland Park in July 2022 and she was chosen as one of the four digital artists for the 2022 Affordable Art Fair in London. She is training in shamanism to balance out her futuristic side and to understand the language of nature. She has just completed a series of digital sculptures for the New Forest National Park to engage audiences with stories of climate mitigation and cross-dimensional experiences that connect people with nature.

Tulum, 2022 Video, colour 38 seconds

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Summit | Temitope Adebowale

Summit

by Temitope Adebowale

BA Fine Art (Hons), Central Saint Martins hello@temitope-artist.com

temitope-artist.com

@temitope.artist

Summit is a portrait of the artist’s sister sleeping and is named after one of the alarm tones her sister would often sleep through.

Temitope Adebowale’s practice uses paint and materials to represent domestic and familiar settings. Her works are pulled out of the past, to rest on the border between past and present. In experimenting with techniques and materials, the memories she conveys teeter on the boundaries between present and absent, near and far, figurative and abstract, familiar and unfamiliar, painting and photography, stillness and motion – and others that she is still discovering.

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Adebowale employs a curiosity and resourcefulness in the development and completion of her works, often working with found images and scrap materials, seeing playfulness as a precious asset. Her perspective exists somewhere between the child-like and adult-like, creating space for her to reflect on how she used to see the world, and then update these reflections through her paintings. Her works are steeped in subtle metaphors and delicately adorned with symbols of her identity and those of her subjects.

Producing art on a regular basis allows her personality to breathe most fully, her creative lungs to inhale and exhale at full capacity. For that, the existence of art and the opportunity to create it, she is very grateful.

Summit, 2022 120 x 80cm (oval only) 190 x 83cm (oval and arc, in default State)

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

The Man Who Lost His Mind Because He Read Too Many Books | Nibras Al-Salman

The Man Who Lost His Mind Because He Read Too Many Books

by Nibras Al-Salman

Ceramic Design, Central Saint Martins

nibrasalsalman@btinternet.com

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@nibrasnibras8

This work explores the tension between two opposing ideas by contrasting the delicacy and fragility of books with the coarseness and robustness of bricks.

It touches on ideas such as censorship and freedom of expression, good and evil, light and darkness. The work was inspired by the character of Don Quixote who, it was said, lost his mind because he read too many books. Books from his library were burnt and the library door was bricked up, so he had no access to his remaining books. Authorities have always thought of new media, that spreads knowledge faster, as subversive and needing to be controlled. The modern equivalent of Don Quixote is the man who lost his mind because he watched too much television, in Salman Rushdie’s Quishotte.

The Man Who Lost His Mind Because He Read Too Many Books, 2022 45 x 45 x 20cm

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Hybrid | Rihanata Bigey

Hybrid

by Rihanata Bigey

MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins bigeyrihanata@gmail.com

@rihanatabigey

Hybrid is a non-human entity that explores the representation of the Black female image through the iconographic significance of the Black female body in both Western and African cultures. The work exhumes physical and psychological trauma by questioning the multiple layers of Black women’s identity through the prism of assimilation. Hybrid is an exaggeration of stereotypes as a way of demystification, flying over cultures, traditions and modernism.

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Hybrid, 2022 Painting: ink drawing collage and acrylic on wood 122 x 160cm

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Endless Kiss | Adam Cole

Endless Kiss

by Adam Cole

MSc Creative Computing, Creative Computing Institute acole9@gmail.com

@adamcole_studio

@adamcole.studio

Endless Kiss merges classic media and AI technology to question how intimacy will be expressed in our digitised future. An AI trained on iconic Hollywood kisses attempts to reproduce the classic image of love but can’t quite get it right. The resulting meditative film depicts an AI-generated couple caught in an endless embrace, rhythmically pulsating. But are we to trust this conventional representation of intimacy or be repulsed by its inhuman origins?

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Furthermore, who is represented in this dataset? Like the AI used in this work, Adam Cole grew up consuming Hollywood depictions of homogenised, heterosexual love. In this piece, he sees a metaphor for his own queer experience. The system repeatedly attempts to reproduce the iconic image of a kiss, of love itself, but it forever fails. The ideal is a myth; the goal is unachievable. And yet, it persists… endlessly.

Watching this kiss unfold, we wonder how love will be experienced in our tech-mediated future. In what ways will the history of who has traditionally been represented as the ‘ideal expression of love’ continue to haunt our mediasaturated culture?

Adam Cole is an American new media artist working at the intersection of art and technology. He is currently based in the UK and recently completed his Master’s degree at the Creative Computing Institute within University of the Arts London. His work spans both the digital and physical, and focuses on the various ways identity and intimacy are mediated through technology.

Using an innovative computational practice, he explores these themes using microprocessors, 3D rendering engines, creative coding algorithms and AI networks. With a keen interest in the history of images, Cole’s work attempts to continue a queer tradition of twisting popular media conventions to reveal unspoken double meanings.

Endless Kiss, August 2022 Video projection, colour 13 minutes, 2 seconds

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Flag | Eva Dixon

Flag

by Eva Dixon

BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins studio@evadixon.com The artist does not have a description of the work as such, though she can say that the work is materially guided and mainly focuses on this.

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Flag, 2022 Machined and hand-stitched fabric and acrylic sealant on stretcher 20 x 24 x 3.5cm

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Charles | Ana Margarita Flores

Charles

by Ana Margarita Flores

Fashion Photography, London College of Fashion

contact@floresana.com

@anmaflor

Charles is wearing oversize trousers made by the young designer Marshall James. Movement and softness are at the core of this image.

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Charles, 2022 C-type black-and-white print mounted on black classic Photo or Floating Box Frame 100 x 150cm

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Future Bodies | Chiara Gandini

Future Bodies

by Chiara Gandini

BA Textiles, Central Saint Martins

chiaragandini12@gmail.com Future Bodies is an investigation of how human bodies could evolve in the future through genetic mutation. A human being with particular features, following a particular preconceived plan, may be born from modified genes.

This ‘unnatural’ process is the only way of developing the species into new forms to face the problems that await it in the future: overpopulation, overuse of natural resources and pollution. As rainfalls will be extremely rare over some parts of Earth due to climate change, Chiara Gandini imagines our bodies as becoming absorbent through genetic mutation in order to retain liquids. The headpiece designed for this project is made of absorbent materials only derived from recycled foam and mop parts.

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Future Bodies Headpiece: recycled foam and waste parts of mops 20 x 20cm

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Olympe de Gouges | Sarah Jane Hender

Olympe de Gouges

by Sarah Jane Hender MA Fine Art Digital

thedevilsdust@yahoo.co.uk

@sarahjanehender

Sarah Jane Hender is a multidisciplinary artist who tries to challenge the cultural dominance of the male gaze by more powerfully and positively depicting the female perspective, while also challenging female tropes and their potentially damaging impact on women’s self-image and self-worth.

Hender’s practice is primarily painting. For the moment, she uses digital imagery as a way of exploring the drawing process. By accessing imagery through her Instagram feed as points of reference, as trigger points, she tries to shift these ideas through the process of paint – a process of removal and defacing, where ghost layers may seep through the surface. She suggests that, possibly subconsciously, she is holding onto previous females within the surface, perhaps shrouding them into another female.

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Olympe de Gouges, 2022 Water-based oil on board 40 x 50cm

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

A Home Away From Home | Natasha Husain

A Home Away From Home

by Natasha Husain

Graphic Design, Camberwell College of Art

natasha.husain01@gmail.com

@for.the.hustle

For every immigrant there is a story and it starts with a journey.

What role can immigration play in familial care? How is the reality of immigration different to our preconceptions? How might this one journey speak to wider conditions and socio-political circumstances?

Through interviews, archival footage and photos, including 8mm digitised film and photo slides from the 1960s and 1970s, the story of one family’s experience of immigration and the details of their journey are revealed, along with questions around belonging, expectations, disillusionment, excitement, sacrifice and care.

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A Home Away From Home, 2022 Video, colour, sound 2 mins and 8 seconds

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Grotesque Bodies Lost | Keyannah Isaacs

Grotesque Bodies Lost

by Keyannah Isaacs

BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins

keyannahisaacsstudio@gmail.com

keyannahisaacs.com

@keeiiks

It split her, with a slow strained ascent into her cunt, and ravened the path inside her. It seemed endless, its body continuous and throbbing around her, like the cacodemon derived some pleasure from her furthering vacancy.

Her lips adorned a blood shine. The last of its length persisted inside her, burrowing in that hole, making itself a home by virtue of the warm, attracting that which it has been denied.

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Gagging.

Heaving.

Retching.

Vomiting with the hope of being rid of it; a hope that was swallowed like the rest of her esprit.

Afraid she was not, for it drank her arid. Its job was concluded. Ownership it stole, filled a once-starved form. Gut now surfeiting, it relished in its achievement before arising, ascending through what was once a struggle, now eased by the passivity of the oesophagus and the presence of pain unconnected. The mouth split wide. Its essence withdrew from the fresh embodiment, enchanting the space outside until its entire condition suffocated the air. A rim of dull blood adorned the lips, and eyes met once more in an invitation without need of words.

It was a dance.

A dance without.

Grotesque Bodies Lost Wood 100 x 100cm

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

The Tempest | Xuanran Jo

The Tempest

by Xuanran Jo

MA Costume Design for Performance, London College of Fashion

xuanranjo@gmail.com

@xuanransharon

Inspired by William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, this costume design evokes the moment when Prospera conjures magic and frees herself from captivity, twirling and swirling in a tempestuous dance of self-discovery. Through the movement of the costume, in harmony with the rhythmic language of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter – a heartbeat of soft and strong beats that repeats itself five times – the performance charts Prospera’s journey towards completeness, unveiling the hidden meanings of her quest.

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The Tempest Costume: 2.4 x 1.3m Film: 2 minutes and 15 seconds

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Attempted Conservation I | Lukas Leisinger

Attempted Conservation I

by Lukas Leisinger

Chelsea College of Art and Design

lukasleisingerart.com

@leisingerart

An absurdist take on painting conservation, here the damaged painting has been treated with surgical blue stitching. In comparing the painting to the human body, it has less of an elevated and untouchable status. The viewer can build a better relationship with the painting as it becomes less intimidating.

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Attempted Conservation I Oil, tape, thread, leaves and sticks on canvas 100 x 135cm

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

The Loveless Island | Minty Liang

The Loveless Island

by Minty Liang

Costume Design for Performance, London College of Fashion

mintyliangyo@gmail.com

@minty_liang

This costume work is based on Bluebeard’s Castle, an opera composed by Béla Bartók. First performed in 1918 at the Royal Hungarian Opera House in Budapest, it tells the story of Duke Bluebeard who kills his three wives in Bluebeard’s Castle; and he will kill the fourth (Judith) who was expecting a wonderful marriage. As the protagonist of the story, Bluebeard’s costumes change to portray his inner transformations and his entanglement with the four women. In the beginning, we see Bluebeard as a character who hides his inner ugliness; he suits up and behaves with great elegance, but slowly he starts to be unable to hide his perverted thoughts and begins to become grotesque.

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The three wives and Judith are not portrayed as real people; they are replaced by clothes, including lingerie and nightwear to serve as symbols of the feminine and sexual associations. After Bluebeard kills them, these clothes become his fantasy of the dead wives. He dances with the garments, ravishing them and embracing them as he did the women he killed. He presents as a perverted image of a man, without the need to limit himself to social morality or to examine the sins he has committed. We watch this man’s final orgy in a moment, a unique formula for him to pay tribute to the women he has killed, his intention not to change but for closure. He did not win in the struggle with his inner demons but gained a kind of peace.

The Loveless Island Costume 200 x 40 x 50cm; 8kg

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Performer: Chloe

Photographer: Agnes

Movement director: Peta

Costume design: Minty

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Liminal Construction | Lauren McNicoll

Liminal Construction

by Lauren McNicoll MA Fine Art: Sculpture

mcnicoll.lauren@gmail.com

laurenmcnicoll.com

This work investigates the liminal space between the mental experience of trauma and the physical settings in which it takes place. The resulting piece is a spatial construction that is constantly in flux, mediating between the body and object.

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The unreliability of memory and inexorable influence of contemporary culture mean individuals are constantly rewriting their personal narratives. Liminal Construction explores this idea through personal experiences of childhood trauma in relation to domestic abuse. Situating the work within the framework of a model allows it to consider infinite contingencies in relation to the idea of self. As the only real constant we experience throughout life, we use our bodies as a reference point for making sense of the world. Set among the material and immaterial structures of society, we collide with everything else – people, ideas, spaces, materials – for moments at a time. Lauren McNicoll aims to amalgamate a number of these and encapsulate a memento of moments.

Working in opposition to the digital white-out by focusing on material processes, the work is highly crafted and considered. Elements are methodically moulded from McNicoll’s own body, imbuing the materials with a private energy. Scale, materiality, distortion, repetition and deletion are all used to slice through our expectations of the female form, and to dismantle it to sit on the verge between body and architecture, where place and space interlock, overlap and sometimes cancel each other out. Architecture is pulled in from its usual occupancy of the periphery of our existence to collide with the figure, which is pushed out from its usual place within.

Liminal Construction, 2022 MDF, wood, plaster, enamel paint, acrylic paint, paper, masking tape, stoneware ceramic, steel, copper, brass, Modroc, 3D-printed polyamide 267 x 222 x 174cm

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

To My Men | Scarlett Morrow

To My Men

by Scarlett Morrow

BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins

srmorrow20@hotmail.co.uk

@scarlettmorrowart

vimeo.com/scarlettmorrow Scarlett Morrow’s art comes from a personal place but she wants her art to be about you, the viewer. Using mostly video, she exposes parts of herself, aiming for the audience to introspect while watching. She wants to use her voice as a platform to speak about the unspoken.

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Morrow focuses on the experience of being a woman. Her process often starts with continuous writing and text is very important in her work. Using this method of exploring through writing she is able to expose more truth, allowing the content to be more raw. She is determined to keep the engagement of the viewer, often achieving this by layering such audio and imagery with her own text. She enjoys using her own previous footage and sound recordings, to create an archive of experiences. In this work, To My Men, she addresses four particular experiences when a man has abused their power in her life. Morrow uses their name and who they were to her, such as Harry The Man At The Party. She wants to make the men as real as they have made her feel but also wants the viewer to make connections to men in their own lives.

Morrow wants to use her work to create more conversations around sexual assault but with this comes difficulty. Within the video she takes you into her head and expresses the pain and trouble of dealing with multiple events.

She is faced with victim-blaming while attempting to understand what she has gone through. Morrow hopes that, through her work, viewers will better understand the effect of sexual assault on a person or find time and strength to connect with and voice their own stories.

To My Men, 2022 Video, colour and sound 2 minutes and 41 seconds

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

My Grandad’s Shed | Phillip Rhys Olney

My Grandad’s Shed

by Phillip Rhys Olney

MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts

olneyphillip@gmail.com Phillip Rhys Olney’s grandfather, father, uncle, brother and the artist himself have all worked, tinkered and fixed in this shed. With this installation, he asks: ‘What happens when I bring this traditionally working-class locale of labour into an elite institutionalised space such as Chelsea College of Arts, or into a typically exclusive space such as an art gallery? Does my inclusion in both of these spaces eradicate my point of view in either of them? Am I too educated for my familial context, too working class for my institutional communities?’

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My Grandad’s Shed, 2022 Installation, wooden shed Dimensions variable; smallest piece 1 x 2m

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

The Origin of the (My) World | Amaya Powers-Fernandez

The Origin of the (My) World

by Amaya Powers-Fernandez BA Fine Art Photography

amayatsukimaro@gmail.com

@mynameistsukimaro

tsukimaropowers.wixsite.com/portfolio Amaya Powers-Fernandez is a multi-media practitioner, predominantly using photography, videography, painting and performance.

The Origin of the (My) World is a photograph in response to the painting L’Origine du monde (1866) by Gustave Courbet. Powers-Fernandez reimagines the original piece with the image of a body that she feels better represents its title and a subject that embodies history as well as reality.

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In Courbet’s piece, he paints the decapitated body of a mystery woman, thought to perhaps have been a sex worker, while Powers-Fernandez places in the frame a woman who is very well known to her. A woman with marks.

A woman with creases. A woman in her early fifties. A woman who has lived through many stages of life. A large woman. A powerful woman. A Black woman. A woman with anger. A woman with love. A conduit of the past, present and future. A bringer of life. A viewer of death. A midwife. A teacher. A witch. A fighter. A daughter. A sister. Amaya Powers-Fernandez’s mother.

The Origin of the (My) World, 2022 Giclée print 32 x 45cm

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

15 Love | Amy Powell

15 Love

by Amy Powell

MA Fine Art: Painting, Camberwell College of Art

enquiries@amypowellartist.co.uk

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amypowellartist.co.uk @amypowellartist

Amy Powell creates uncanny works that oscillate between sculpture and painting, using appropriated images from a variety of printed sources. Her practice is predicated on the objecthood of painting. The frame and physical extensions of her paintings create a portal for the viewer into the virtual space of the work while simultaneously playing with the tangible to reveal the illusion that the image sustains. Indispensable to her practice, she intentionally uses the illusionistic and tactile properties of painting to emphasise interactivity, questioning the nature of reality and reproduction. Frames, acrylic, aluminium and paint are some of the instruments that embody and contribute to the artificial and physical properties of Powell’s images. The works offer a startling duplexity to the contemporary image, comprising the subjective and the objective, the internal and the external, the real and the fictitious.

Powell aims to subvert the way we look at pictures with new ways of imagemaking. The tactile approach to image-making draws the viewer in and plays with the relationship between two and three dimensions, with the sculptural element rendering it a more speculative object to divulge the meaning of a picture. The language shifts when the perception of the viewer is altered by the tactile presence of the work, semantically pointing to the material attributes of pictures as objects. By lifting the images out of their original context, the works allow for a new transitory nature that evokes free association and perception.

15 Love, 2019 Oil on canvas, MDF, pine wood frame, enamel paint, fluorescent green acrylic plastic, chrome mirror screws 101 x 131.5 x 6.7cm

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Song of the Sun | Ramakaushalyan Ramakrishnan

Song of the Sun

by Ramakaushalyan Ramakrishnan

BA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, London College of Communication

kaushalram7@gmail.com

@ram00009

Ramakaushalyan is a photographer and filmmaker based in London and India.

His works primarily focus on the violent effects of human alienation, dealing with identity politics through the themes of sub-conscious reality and the mind, where the human soul is able to explore itself to the complete form.

Ramakaushalyan, now primarily a filmmaker, has been practicing photography for the past five years and finds himself amused by harsh colours – blue, red, orange – and single-character stories.

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Song of the Sun C-type Fuji matt print mounted on 5mm Foamex black display card 38 x 41cm

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

The Authentic Tea Maker | Unza Khuram

The Authentic Tea Maker

by Unza Khuram

Fine art painting, Camberwell @unz_art_

unza.khuram@icloud.com

My work connects with me the way people have not; it creates a language for me that I could never seem to learn.

My work stands up for my trauma; my work protects me from reality.

I have never been good at communication, but my work has. My work cries for me; it allows souls to see through mine as if transparent.

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When I paint, I don’t see a simple image – I see every circle, every stroke as a part of my story coming together to explain why I am the way I am. Sometimes I like to see the canvas as a baby, so innocent and naive until they grow character. The way my canvas starts off pure but ends with the burden of my story really allows a connection that cannot be stolen.

Just as I disconnect, my work fixates on my audience.

I would like to believe that every artist is unique and vastly different, but I have come to realise the connection we all share with each other is beyond compare.

Every canvas is unique, just as every story is unique. My story puts me into a cultural and conflicted mix. Trying to explain my personality, my heritage, my family, my life – it isn’t easy but when my canvas looks at me, I can’t say no.

I am a painter who loves to speak. I love my colours, but I hate what they bring.

I love my people but not what they create.

I, Unza Khuram, am a South Asian artist. My skin does not define me, it cultivates me.

The Authentic Tea Maker, March 2022 100 x 100cm

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Electric Comets | Ciana Taylor

Electric Comets

by Ciana Taylor

BA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design

cianataylor@outlook.com

cianataylor.com

@ciana_taylor

A fear of flying starts to merge with the chaos of a larger machine at work.

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Electric Comets, 2022 Video, colour and sound 3 minutes and 7 seconds

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Bonma | Ella Trott

Bonma

by Ella Trott

BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins

ellatrott@gmail.com

@ang3lsl1ce

‘Oh, morning Sue’, my best mate said, Before his face turned rather red.

For there on the landing stood our mum, Without a thread to cover her bum ‘Are you staying for lunch?’ my mother asked.

He stood there speechless, face aghast.

‘Well don’t worry now, but do let me know.’

As she stood there, starkers with all on show.

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And just like that, off she sped And left him there to scratch his head.

‘Did that just happen?’ I heard him say.

I said to him, ‘That’s just mum’s way’.

The thing to do, is worry not; That you see, is the real Sue Trott.

For in Mum’s book, if you’re her guest, You’re just one of us, and nothing less.

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Bonma, March 2022 Oil on canvas 80 x 100cm

That means you’ll see her in all her ways And she’ll change not a jot, to earn your praise.

She wants you to know you’re welcome here, To be yourself and to act with no fear.

My mate got to know our mum Sue, And visited often to share a brew.

With her cloud of smoke and the smile on her face, He says she made Newlyn a happy place.

A word from my Dad to celebrate his mum and the memories of love and humour she has left in our hearts.

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Galicia | Jessica Jennebach Varela

Galicia

by Jessica Jennebach Varela

BA (Hons) Fine Art, Central Saint Martins

jessicajennebach@hotmail.com

jessicajennebachvarela.com

Jessica Jennebach Varela works with astrophotography, underwater photography and IR photography and creates abstract images, dreamscapes and fragmented scenes. In her artistic practice, her work has evolved into creating with alternative photographic techniques and processes, mixing photography with printmaking, altering photographs with chemicals, printing on chlorophyll and exploring surfaces and possibilities with the help of technology and nature. Jennebach Varela’s aim is to create mysterious dreamscapes, fragmented images deeply rooted in her early life in Murcia, south-eastern Spain, on the beach, where she grew up very connected to nature, although it was also a place enduring desertification and extreme pollution.

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In addition, her art is a study of sound. The visual pieces often act as graphic scores. She focuses on listening to the shapes, textures and colours of a space, and on creating new sensory and synaesthetic possibilities through the light in her images.

Since 2016 she has been exploring the world by photographing degraded landscapes, capturing the broken beauty of these places and their unique textures and sounds. Her photograph Galicia was taken with a modified infrared camera in the forests of Galicia, northern Spain, in summer. Later, she experimented with creating a series of ‘glitched’ landscapes. In Galicia, the photograph was altered to generate a posthuman glitched landscape with the help of sound editing software.

Galicia, 20221 C-type print mounted on Dibond (aluminium) 1290 x 870 mm framed (1264 x 841mm unframed)

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Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

Roomies | Ajun Yao, Hazel Dong, Yingzi Wu

Roomies

by Ajun Yao, Hazel Dong, Yingzi Wu

MA Fashion, Film and Digital Production, London College of Fashion

ajunyao10000@gmail.com

ajunyao.com

@yaoajun10000 | @hapezuee_ | @daschristkind.z Roomies is an absurdist fashion film inspired by Miu Miu, with silent film art and fashion as its main context. It seeks a connection between order and freedom in everyday life within the fashion discourse. It is an exploration of the duality of opposition and balance between freedom and order. The two actors are like two sides of contemporary youth at the same moment: order on the one hand and freedom on the other, interdependent and inseparable. The story is about two girls, one of whom symbolises order and the other freedom.

After living together in a safe house for a while, the two distinct girls gradually accept each other and become better versions of themselves.

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Roomies, 14 May 2022 Video

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

#AAMURAKAMI | Shan Yun Yu

#AAMURAKAMI

by Shan Yun Yu

BA Fashion Photography, London College of Fashion

ms.stephanieyu@gmail.com

@sytriple

#AAMURAKAMI is a photographic work that aims to promote the customised pair of shoes inspired by the artist duo AA Murakami’s exhibition, Silent Fall.

The fashion image taken at Dover, known for its spectacular cliffs, captures emotions that address the relationship between nature, technology and humans.

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#AAMURAKAMI C-type print 160 x 108cm; A0 or A1 size

FREE RANGE

Xhibit 2023 | Championing Future Creatives

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First and foremost, Xhibit could not happen without the understanding, interest, value and commitment of Arts SU staff, student staff and sabbatical officers.

Thanks also to the Truman Brewery for providing a new home for Xhibit this year, in particular Rhiannon Bowden, Chloe Harris and Kat Lattimore.

For 2023 we wish to highlight our passionate and knowledgeable selection panel: Minna Ellis (CSM Sabbatical Officer 2022–24), Joe Hill (Director, Towner Eastbourne), Kim Hughes (CCW Sabbatical Officer 2022–23) and Tim A. Shaw (cofounder Hospital Rooms).

This catalogue was copy edited by Susannah Worth who can be reached at susannahworthediorial@gmail. com.

We thank our 28 brilliant students for their incredible work, engagement and understanding. Equally we thank our enthusiastic, creative and openminded 2023 student exhibition curator Sarah Winski.

Image by Serena Burgis

Thank You!

We thank our exhibition partners Cass Art, in particular Mark Cass and Liesel Thomas, for their ongoing commitment to the professional development offer at Arts SU and their continued support through their yearly art materials bursary.

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Shop the collection. All artists were invited to sell their work as part of the exhibition. Artworks are sold and represented through our sales platform Made in Arts, London.

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