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.
XHIBIT 2023 PRESS RELEASE
Dray Walk Gallery
Dray Walk London
E1 6QL
PV Friday 28/04/2023 (6–8.30pm)
Exhibition 29/04/2023 – 03/05/2023 (10am–5pm every day, including Bank Holiday)
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.
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 Zhou 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. Zhou’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 2023.
Sarah Winski, Xhibit student curator 2023
Curator bio
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, Sarah’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, Sarah completed a BA in Chinese, focusing on philosophy, literature and art history. As a Research Fellow at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, Sarah 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.
Xhibit 2023 artists
Karina Abramova | Temitope Adebowale | Nibras Al-Salman | Rihanata Bigey | Adam Cole | Eva Dixon | Ana Flores | Chiara Gandini | Sarah Jane Hender | Natasha Husain | Keyannah Isaacs | 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 | Ajun Yao, Hazel Dong, Yingzi Wu | Shan-Yun Yu | Xuanran Jo
Selected works
The below gallery shows a selection of the works featured in the exhibition- we wish to acknowledge that one of these images contains nudity.
Natasha Husain, Graphic Design Camberwell College of Art
A Home Away From Home, 2022 (film still)
Phillip Rhys Olney, MA Fine Art Chelsea College of Arts
My Grandad’s Shed, 2022
Temitope Adebowale, BA Fine Art (Hons) Central Saint Martins
Summit, 2022
Amaya Powers-Fernandez, BA Fine Art Photography Camberwell College of Arts
The Origin of the (My) World, 2022
Xuanran Jo, MA Costume Design for Performance London College of Fashion
The Tempest
Ciana Taylor, BA Fine Art Chelsea College of Art and Design
Electric Comets, 2022
Adam Cole, MSc Creative Computing Creative Computing Institute
Endless Kiss, August 2022
Karina Abramova / Las Palmas Doradas, MA Applied Imagination Central Saint Martins
Tulum, 2022
For more information on the show, please visit the Arts SU website and social media channels or email Sophie Risner, Arts SU Arts Programmer s.risner@su.arts.ac.uk
www.arts-su.com/creative/xhibit/