20 Southampton artists explore our archaeological past in a new exhibition
Following a successful first exhibition in 2023 by the ZING collective, this year the networking group for artists with connections to Southampton, bring more artists and ideas together in the heart of the city.
A contemporary art exhibition, titled 'Material Remains,' will fill part of the Guildhall Square in Southampton with work by local visual artists from the collective between Friday 26th and Sunday 28th April 2024.
Sparked by an ongoing project where ZING artists are working with Southampton Cultural Services, the exhibition will present a conceptually explorative visual journey into themes surrounding archaeology.
Ongoing visits to the museum stores has allowed ZING artists to explore their collection of thousands of everyday items discovered in the city and uncover stories about their potential owners. The exhibition will include works which take direct influence from the collection, as well as works which more broadly consider archaeological themes.
This new collection of work will be displayed in and around repurposed shipping containers in Guildhall Square and is free and open to all to attend. The exhibition will include artworks in textiles, print, mixed media sculpture, painting, photography, crochet and more.
Richard Henry, Curator of Archaeology, Southampton City Council Cultural Services said: "Southampton has a rich archaeological tapestry with hundreds of thousands of objects within Southampton City Council’s Designated collection. It has been wonderful collaborating with ZING to help uncover new stories about Southampton’s diverse collections celebrating the city’s cultural heritage."
ZING Collective are extremely grateful to Southampton Cultural Services and Richard Henry the Curator of Archaeology who has been working with the artists to make the exhibition possible. The museum stores contain thousands of items which have been dug up in the city over many years. The collaboration has enabled these objects and their stories to be brought back to life and new meanings to be discovered.
Join the artists at the launch event on Friday 26th April, 6pm to 8pm or visit the exhibition 12pm to 4pm Friday to Sunday.
ZING
ZEST INCLUSIVE GROUP
Introducing ZING, a new network for Southampton visual artists established in 2023.
ZING is a local group of over 50 artists supported by ZEST that meet once a month for skill sharing workshops.
They also do regular life drawing classes and just last year put on an excellent exhibition in Guildhall Square called ‘Common Threads’.
If you wish to join ZING please contact us at info@zestartscollective.com
All are welcome!
Keep up-to-date with the exciting workshops, events and exhibitions by following their Instagram:
Join us for ZING’s second group exhibition ‘Material remains’
Guildhall Square
26-28 April 2024
ZINg Archive
Participating Artists
Ellen Gillett
@ellengillett
Ellen Gillett is a visual artist who creates animated and interactive installations that explore gesture and illusions of movement. Her practice involves drawing, stop-motion animation and digitally created video artworks.
‘Port of Southampton Presented as if it were a Woven Tapestry’ responds both to the exhibition’s unconventional shipping container gallery space and its themes of tapestry, woven connections, and traditional methods of making.
A long satellite image of Southampton’s port printed on fabric is cropped in a way that makes the colourful rows of shipping containers resemble the weft of a long woven wall tapestry. This playful deception celebrates Southampton's industrial heritage and identity, while also highlighting the contrast between traditional handmade weaving methods and the modern commercial industry of shipping consumer goods.
The artwork's title is both descriptive and literal, providing a clear framework for understanding the piece's conceptual and visual elements. By contrasting digital printing and traditional weaving techniques, 'Port of Southampton Presented as if it were a Woven Tapestry' encourages us to consider the interplay between tradition and modernity in our everyday lives.
sarah filmer
@sezifilmswork
gentle revolutionary, working with death, knitting, the human/non-human-animal relationship, and the status and representation of women, sarah works individually and collaboratively with video, photography, drawing, and yarn based craft. sarah’s work has been selected for open exhibitions, screened at national and international film festivals, and been commissioned by the national trust. she has been known to intervene with temporary works in public spaces.
Alongside her art practice, she currently works as a senior lecturer in fine art at solent university, and as a vet at the rspca thinking about my relationship with my companion animals, and how we hold space for it in our everyday, i have made 3 vessels from a plant in the garden we share and our respective mammalian hairy coverings. this vessel is made with ed's fur, with both the twine and the vessel assembled with ed on my lap.
Alice Louisa
@alicelouisap
Alice Louisa is a visual artist from Southampton whose work is cinematic, provocative and raw. Growing up working class, fantasy became an escape and this translates in her work. She produces diverse narratives that are inspired largely by her upbringing, surroundings, climate justice and human interest.
Analog methods have been her preferred way to communicate. The world is so fast, that slowing down her practice and making photography part of the conversation is key to her work.
‘Feel The Burn’ a satirical photography series examining heat waves through the lens of a blissful British summer.
‘Tree’ is a photography series inspired by nature, and the relationships that we share with trees. This series has been inspired by the forests I grew up around and the many trees I have climbed.
‘Ensis Magnus’ is a photography series that explores the loss of what is precious in our oceans due to the rise of sea temperatures and plastic pollution. This shoot was imagined while collecting shells at various beaches around the world
‘2,318’ is a photography series that examines the relationship between people and their mobile phones. Examining the implications of technology on their mental health.
All works are in collaboration with Ines Costa
All makeup, hair and nail art by Ines Costa //
Photography and lighting assist by Oktawia Beim // Lighting assist for Feel the Burn by Malcolm Wilson // Visuals and set design for 2,318 by Eurico Brandão // Modelling by Irina Bozenkova-Minina, Keniel Peart, Chloe Wings and Diego
With thanks to The Film Safe, Tom Westbury and Viro Print
Mandy Smith
@mandysmithartist
Mandy smith is a Southampton artist, Inspired by local history and every day scenes, highlighting often overlooked details found around us.
Rushing on my commute down the QE2 mile to catch the ferry a momentary stumble breaks my journey. History literally written in the paving stones reminds me I am retracing the footsteps of Sotonians before me, each paving stone weaving my journey through the history of Southampton. My project aims to lift these unnoticed or unread histories off the ground and redirect our gaze.
The stories stop at year 2006.
What modern day stories would you add?
Do you know of a story that has been forgotten or missed from the existing paving stones?
Olana Light
@olanalight
Olana's practice moves between sculpture, performance, photography, and the moving image, and reflects the multiplicities of identity and a never-ending pursuit of belonging that is close to her heart.
Exploring notions of ‘self’, and its connection with the body and nature, Olana's work offers new perceptions by challenging audiences to accept the absurdity of the ‘other’, to question their beliefs, and to interrogate their own sense of belonging. She seeks to create a dialogue for change: about nature and our relationship with it; about who we are; and about why art is and should be for everyone to access.
Change is important to her in her project, Fly Like a Butterfly, which is representative of her conviction of our ability to grow and transform. The butterfly is a powerful metaphor for transformation: it begins life in one form - born as a caterpillar - before a period of dormancy, during which it transforms to leave the safety of the cocoon in its new form as a butterfly.
Sara Melly
@saramellyart
Sara is a former clinical psychologist and therapist, who is now a painter and visual artist, living and working in Winchester.
Sara's work is influenced by her former career as a psychologist in the NHS and the Ministry of Defence. The images she constructs often depict people in environments which evoke disquiet or menace. She tries to convey how it is possible to feel exposed even when supposedly safe and to feel lonely even in company. Reality and unreality co-exist, but the feeling or emotion is the predominant subject.
Technically Sara's work often combines print, paint, drawing and digital collage in a variety of ways.
The three works in Common Thread are all about introspection and feeling alone – sometimes a positive experience, often not. The works are digitally collaged together drawings and photographs which are then printed onto canvas which is mounted onto board and framed.
All works are for sale. Please feel free to contact Sara via sarammelly@gmail.com or on 07824 859059. Her website is SaraMellyArt.co.uk.
Sharlott Wardner
@sharlott_art
Sharlott Wardner’s practice is based around loss, from the erosion of innocence and the stifling of imagination, to grief. In her work she positions childhood as a centre for freedom and joy to which we can never fully return. Throughout her portfolio of work, she translates nostalgia into something tangible, occasionally bordering on the sinister.
Wardner is a mixed media artist, using a range of materials from paints and pastels to pyrography and plaster. Never limiting her options for materials is key to her practice, and she enjoys keeping herself open to new styles and avenues. She believes that by maintaining that freedom, she keeps her developing portfolio fresh for her audiences.
Her influences include childhood memories, the death of her incredible stepmother, and her personal battle with anxiety and depression. Artists whose work has been greatly impactful on her practice include Mindy Sue Wittlock, Katie Kaapke, Junker Jane, sarah filmer, and Felix Gonzalez Torres.
Poppy F Ash
@poppyfash
Poppy's practice explores the overlooked and everyday, celebrating the most mundane aspects of daily life. Poppy invites viewers to pay closer attention to and re-examine their surroundings, questioning what dictates the value of objects and experiences.
'Street Fan' is the first drawing in a series of flytipped electrical items that Poppy is currently working on, capturing abandoned electrical items around residential areas of Southampton - from toasters to radiators and mini stoves. When walking through Southampton in the evenings, Poppy notices the vast quantity of discarded appliances in unexpected places. Skulking in the shadows, these objects provide a striking and eerie presence.
Poppy’s work combats the ephemerality of these abandoned and displaced objects, documenting them in vibrant colour before they are tidied up or taken by passersby. Exploring relationships between residents and shared spaces through communal littering, the illustration also prompts further questions: whose belonging is this? What history is attached to the object?
Lucie Smith
@luciesmithart
lucie smith’s practice seeks to grasp the whereabouts of her being through process and research led interrogation. by exploring the expansive realm of art process and medium, she attempts to unite past with present and unconscious with conscious. notions of memory, trace, preservation, dereliction and the archival are interwoven; alluding to a collective fluidity of the passage of time.
Autobiographical and sometimes confessional, smith's practice is rooted within the concealed, allowing a process of analysing the internal to take the lead in obtaining narratives. through this, she simultaneously explores the gaps and relationships posed between empathy, artefacts, places and emotive contexts. smith's practice also divulges an underpinned fascination with the natural world whereby she will often draw upon symbolic meanings, fragments and life cycles of natural matter to materialise concepts.
Posie A
@posieasculpture
Created out of plaster, this work references medieval and renaissance statues in an effort to correct some of the historical gender imbalance, where women were often the object of the work, rather than the subject. Strongly influenced by her experience of motherhood, which has reintroduced the artist to her own childhood and adolescent experience - through the prism of a parents eyes. Posie A has created this work in an effort to capture her experience truthfully to reflect on the power of these intergenerational dialogues.
Edgar Lushaju
@Drawhapa
I am a graphic artist from Tanzania, and I tell stories through my illustrations and art. I love creating with the imagination hoping to provoke contemplation and wonder.
The overarching concept is showcasing seemingly obvious situations but with a thought igniting twist. It is something that should or could be but for some reason is not, akin to a parallel universe. From this idea, within this alternate space, I have chosen to capture the themes of identity, place making and visibility as they personally apply to me as a high context individual.
Jilly Evans
@jillyevansart
Jilly Evans is a visual artist based at the Arches Studios in Southampton, tucked away under Central bridge. She uses crafts often associated with women such as knitting, sewing and cross stitch, subverting these traditional mediums, encouraging the viewer to think about what she’s making and why.
Both Echo and Winn Road are cross stitched versions of grafitti tags that can be found all across the city. In taking these tags out of context and making facimiles of them in fabric and thread she is thinking about who is making the original tag, seeing them perhaps as a form of artistic expression rather than vandalism. Is tagging a way of claiming ownership of the city, of achieving a sense of belonging?
Robin Price
@robin_price_
Robin Price is a visual artist interested in ways he can challenge & unpack binary & gendered approaches to art making. Robin works across traditionally masculine & feminine sculptural materials, constructing monumental installations with a combination of new & reclaimed materials, alongside textile works using crochet & sewing inspired by garment design.
Material 1 is a large scale piece of crochet combining my collection of scrap yarns.
This is the first in a series I plan on creating, using a large crochet hook I am able to experiment with stitch, scale and colour.
Emmanuel Boateng
@emmanuel_boateng.art
Emmanuel Boateng is a Ghanaian British artist who is currently doing a PHD at Solent University’ Emmanuel’s research and practice is exploring how layers and fragments of of Kente fabric can be reimagined as paintings and installations that challenge notions of race and black representation in contemporary artistic spaces, thus decolonizing imperial ways of seeing in art spaces.
Interweave are a body of work exploring the idea of weaving with found and discarded objects.