New work and public programme
Life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooooooooot research exhibition
Taking its title from Vampyroteuthis Infernalis by Vilem Flusser, this research exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (CCA), begins as a dialogue with nineteen collaborators, experimenting to bring form to the potential of discarded matter, this “powdery fertiliser.” This “life bestowing cadaverous soot” is itself a composite cycle, speaking to the cipher of beginning and end, the giving of life to the ashes of death.
The work of this exhibition is in the articulation and will of debris, dust and soot, converging to form matter that seeks only to nourish the potential for more life. A new life that can exist in parallel to our concepts of diasporic/ancestral mythology; abstracted homes/lands; imagined futures/family/kin; and other ways of being that resist and dream beyond our current hostile, and increasingly unliveable, realities.
Through conversations, experiments, performances, sharings, screenings, tours, objects and artefacts held within the laboratory of the gallery space, Rae-Yen’s blueprint emerges as a thirdspace, capable of navigating the perceived hostility of the abyss. This serves as a means to get closer to, imagine and fabulate other presents and futures that resonate with the diverse potentials for life’s rebirth and formation, in this dimension or another.
Collaborators: Rae-Yen Song, Emii Alrai, Clarinda Tse, Dukhee Jordan, Aniara Omann, Choy Ka Fai, Terence Heng, Kara Chin, Hazel Brill, Tommy Perman, April Lin, Rumpus Room, Sophia Hao, Asli Hatipoglu, Divya Osbon, Mi You, Jonny Geber, Kaajal Modi, Chanda Prescod Weinstein, Yanxia Zhao
The outcomes of this laboratory also form the groundwork for Rae-Yen’s forthcoming 2025 exhibition at Tramway.
Free, unticketed for both the preview and the exhibition.
Preview 23rd Feb from 6 to 9pm
Exhibition hours: Tues – Sat 11am to 6pm, closed Sun- Mon
The research exhibition is accompanied by a live programme of public engagement including live performance, film screenings, and tours of the exhibition by the curators. The Goethe-Institute Glasgow is pleased to support a walk-through by German scholar and curator Dr Mi You (documenta Institute and University of Kassel), and a performance by the artist Choy Ka Fai. More details will be made available as soon as possible.
