Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light
a touring exhibition by Benjamin Sebastian (2024/25)
Installation view of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Studios (Oldham) - Image courtesy of Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Studios and Benjamin Sebastian - 2025
➣ Herbert Read Gallery (Canterbury)
➣ CT20 (Folkestone)
➣ VSSL Studio (London)
➣ Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Studios (Oldham)
This timely exhibition of works by artist Benjamin Sebastian (b. 1980, Cairns, Australia. Lives and works in London, UK) is their largest solo presentation in the UK to date, consisting predominantly of new digital collage and textile works, soft sculpture and installation, as well as performance art documentation & relics.
➣ CT20 (Folkestone)
➣ VSSL Studio (London)
➣ Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Studios (Oldham)
This timely exhibition of works by artist Benjamin Sebastian (b. 1980, Cairns, Australia. Lives and works in London, UK) is their largest solo presentation in the UK to date, consisting predominantly of new digital collage and textile works, soft sculpture and installation, as well as performance art documentation & relics.
Installation view of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at Herbert Read Gallery (Canterbury) - Image courtesy of Herbert Read Gallery and Benjamin Sebastian - 2024
Installation view of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at VSSL Studio (London) - Image courtesy of VSSL Studio and Benjamin Sebastian - 2024
Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light traces Sebastian’s development as a collage, assemblage, installation & performance artist, sculptor and craftsperson - while foregrounding their current engagement with decoloniality; unpacking aspects of their settler heritage while reflecting on neurodivergent & nonbinary identity.
➣ ArtVerge Interview
➣ KUPOD Podcast
➣ QX Interview
➣ Exhibition Text
➣ List of Works
➣ ArtVerge Interview
➣ KUPOD Podcast
➣ QX Interview
➣ Exhibition Text
➣ List of Works
Benjamin Sebastian in conversation with Tamsin Hong (Exhibitions Curator, Serpentine Galleries) at The Folkestone Bookshop - on the occassion of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at CT20 (Folkestone) - 2024
Sebastian’s oeuvre has often been described as; “...a constellation of mirrors; reflecting aspects of the body, times, spaces & relationships I (have) inhabit(ed) – or – as world-making experiments, manifested through intuitive, erotic and esoteric methodologies."
Floorplan of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at Herbert Read Gallery (Canterbury) and Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Studios (Oldham) - 2024/25
Floorplan of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at CT20 (Folkestone) and VSSL Studio (London) - 2024/25
Through such ‘constellation of mirrors’, Sebastian engages viewers in a multifocal examination of coloniality - acknowledging their position within historic colonizing processes (settler heritage) while also holding space for their position as a colonized subject (neurodivergent and nonbinary) - enacting a kind of mirror switch, whereby Sebastian’s personal histories and embodied experiences, become a collective platform, enabling wider social reflection regarding each individual’s position within systems of power, domination, liberation and resilience.
Installation view of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at CT20 (Folkestone) - Image courtesy of CT20 and Benjamin Sebastian - 2024
Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light is not intended to make sense, yet rather, as a process of sense-making - where hybrid identities, iconoclastic gestures, patchwork (visual) languages and amorphously gendered entities diffuse settled narratives - opening up spaces of unknowing, encouraging moments of contemplation, critical reflection and visioning in relation to the interconnected complexities of our contemporary, social and political landscapes.
Video documentation of ‘Phoenix’ performed at CT20 (2024). Recorded by Studio MaBa (Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance). Exhibited as part of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’. 2024/2025
Video documentation of ‘3 Reflections²’ performed at the Institute of Contemporary Art (as part of FUTURERITUAL, 2022). Recorded by Studio MaBa (Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance). Exhibited as part of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’. 2024/25
Acknowledgements:
Benjamin Sebastian was raised on the stolen/unceeded lands of the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji, Djabugay and Yirrganydji peoples and pays respects to their Elders past, present and emerging - while extending that respect to all Indigenous Australians.
Benjamin Sebastian was raised on the stolen/unceeded lands of the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji, Djabugay and Yirrganydji peoples and pays respects to their Elders past, present and emerging - while extending that respect to all Indigenous Australians.
