exhibition
INDEX:
2024
2023
2021
2017
2013
• Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light - CT20 (Folkestone)
• Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light - Herbert Read Gallery (Canterbury)
2023
• Pretty Doomed
• Facet
• Benjamin Sebastian & Alicia Radage
2021
• Working With Entities//Setting Intent
• PSX: A Decade of Performance Art in the U.K.
2017
• Becoming Constellation
• Anhelo
2013
• My Pornographic Heart
Benjamin Sebastian: Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light
2024
‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ - Installation view at Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury - Image courtesy of the artist - 2024
Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light
Benjamin Sebastian
1st November - 29th November, 2024
CT20
➣ Press Release
➣ Extended exhibition text by Jane Scarth
➣ List of works
This predominantly new body of work by Benjamin Sebastian confronts their ancestral implication in violent structures of settler-colonialism, while holding space for a spiritually expansive understanding of our relationship to the world around us and the forces that shape it through multiple forms of coloniality. This exhibition reveals a visual language of stitch, pattern, symbolism and hybridity, developed to unravel complex personal and political histories.
Across performance, collage, textiles and sculptural practice, Sebastian’s poetic interrogation of their own selfhood provides a prism, revealing a spectrum of possible alternatives for being in relation with others, lands, histories, and that which exists beyond tangible experience. Sebastian holds within themselves a range of complex tensions - their queer non-binary identity, their neurodivergence and their deeply spiritual relationship to the world, alongside their settler-colonial Australian heritage. All of these factors inform both their artistic methodologies as well as the critical framework within which their practice is situated.
Benjamin Sebastian
1st November - 29th November, 2024
CT20
➣ Press Release
➣ Extended exhibition text by Jane Scarth
➣ List of works
This predominantly new body of work by Benjamin Sebastian confronts their ancestral implication in violent structures of settler-colonialism, while holding space for a spiritually expansive understanding of our relationship to the world around us and the forces that shape it through multiple forms of coloniality. This exhibition reveals a visual language of stitch, pattern, symbolism and hybridity, developed to unravel complex personal and political histories.
Across performance, collage, textiles and sculptural practice, Sebastian’s poetic interrogation of their own selfhood provides a prism, revealing a spectrum of possible alternatives for being in relation with others, lands, histories, and that which exists beyond tangible experience. Sebastian holds within themselves a range of complex tensions - their queer non-binary identity, their neurodivergence and their deeply spiritual relationship to the world, alongside their settler-colonial Australian heritage. All of these factors inform both their artistic methodologies as well as the critical framework within which their practice is situated.
‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ - Installation view at Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury - Image courtesy of the artist - 2024
‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ - Installation view at Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury - Image courtesy of the artist - 2024
The works in this exhibition hold these tensions and reveal a powerful interconnectedness between these states of being. The artworks bring forth other-than-human creatures - from hybrid zoomorphic bodies to amorphously gendered entities - who not only defy the so-called ‘natural’ order but also exist beyond it. Sebastian has spoken of their art practice as a ‘process of manifesting something-not-yet-known’, realised through queer and neurodivergent methodologies that are allied with esoteric practices. By holistically embracing these as alternative ways of being in the world, there is a genuine and powerful opportunity for new possibilities to emerge, beyond the persistent colonial logics that shape our reality.
All of these ideas are explored through the lens of their own lived experience and personal histories. We encounter family photographs, homoerotic male bodies, quilted fragments of their mother’s discarded clothes, the forms of spirits they have been in relation with since adolescence, alongside performance relics imbued with queer symbolism. Through these objects, Holding the Shadow While Calling Back The Light is a call to directly confront ancestral and societal traumas, while welcoming a joyful spectrum of possibilities beyond them.
All of these ideas are explored through the lens of their own lived experience and personal histories. We encounter family photographs, homoerotic male bodies, quilted fragments of their mother’s discarded clothes, the forms of spirits they have been in relation with since adolescence, alongside performance relics imbued with queer symbolism. Through these objects, Holding the Shadow While Calling Back The Light is a call to directly confront ancestral and societal traumas, while welcoming a joyful spectrum of possibilities beyond them.
‘The Seemingly Innocent Are Not Without Danger’ (detail) - calico, cotton thread, silver gelatin photographic print, reconstructed nylon flag - W:26 x H:18cm - 2024
‘Taut’ (detail) - calico, cotton thread, inkjet print on calico, reconstructed nylon flag, tin eyelets - W:35 x H:20cm - 2024
Acknowledgements
Benjamin Sebastian was raised on the stolen lands of the Djabugay and Yidinji peoples and pays respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
This exhibition is made possible with National Lottery Project Grants funding from Arts Council England and will tour to Gallery 1853, Oldham (4th April – 2nd May 2025) and VSSL Studio, London (Summer 2025) with further venues to be announced.
Benjamin would like to sincerely thank Ash McNaughton, Mine Kaplangı, Matteo Cortés, Bean, Jane Scarth, Marco Berardi, Baiba Sprance, Anna Marsland, Molly Clark, Robyn Ellen, John Chandler, Ant The Elder and the creative teams at Tanks Arts Centre, Gallery 1853, VSSL Studio, Hebert Read Gallery, Cooke’s Framing, FUTURERITUAL and CT20 - without whose input, support and collaboration, this exhibition would not have been possible.
Related Media
➣ Read Sebastian’s recent interview with ArtVerge HERE
➣ Listen to Sebastian’s recent conversation with Studio & Gallery 1853 and KUPOD for their Our Art Podcast HERE
Benjamin Sebastian was raised on the stolen lands of the Djabugay and Yidinji peoples and pays respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
This exhibition is made possible with National Lottery Project Grants funding from Arts Council England and will tour to Gallery 1853, Oldham (4th April – 2nd May 2025) and VSSL Studio, London (Summer 2025) with further venues to be announced.
Benjamin would like to sincerely thank Ash McNaughton, Mine Kaplangı, Matteo Cortés, Bean, Jane Scarth, Marco Berardi, Baiba Sprance, Anna Marsland, Molly Clark, Robyn Ellen, John Chandler, Ant The Elder and the creative teams at Tanks Arts Centre, Gallery 1853, VSSL Studio, Hebert Read Gallery, Cooke’s Framing, FUTURERITUAL and CT20 - without whose input, support and collaboration, this exhibition would not have been possible.
Related Media
➣ Read Sebastian’s recent interview with ArtVerge HERE
➣ Listen to Sebastian’s recent conversation with Studio & Gallery 1853 and KUPOD for their Our Art Podcast HERE
Benjamin Sebastian: Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light
2024
‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ - Installation view at Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury - Image courtesy of the artist - 2024
Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light
Benjamin Sebastian
12 September - 19 October, 2024
Herbert Read Gallery
➣ Press Release
➣ Extended exhibition text by Jane Scarth
➣ List of works
This predominantly new body of work by Benjamin Sebastian confronts their ancestral implication in violent structures of settler-colonialism, while holding space for a spiritually expansive understanding of our relationship to the world around us and the forces that shape it through multiple forms of coloniality. This exhibition reveals a visual language of stitch, pattern, symbolism and hybridity, developed to unravel complex personal and political histories.
Across performance, collage, textiles and sculptural practice, Sebastian’s poetic interrogation of their own selfhood provides a prism, revealing a spectrum of possible alternatives for being in relation with others, lands, histories, and that which exists beyond tangible experience. Sebastian holds within themselves a range of complex tensions - their queer non-binary identity, their neurodivergence and their deeply spiritual relationship to the world, alongside their settler-colonial Australian heritage. All of these factors inform both their artistic methodologies as well as the critical framework within which their practice is situated.
Benjamin Sebastian
12 September - 19 October, 2024
Herbert Read Gallery
➣ Press Release
➣ Extended exhibition text by Jane Scarth
➣ List of works
This predominantly new body of work by Benjamin Sebastian confronts their ancestral implication in violent structures of settler-colonialism, while holding space for a spiritually expansive understanding of our relationship to the world around us and the forces that shape it through multiple forms of coloniality. This exhibition reveals a visual language of stitch, pattern, symbolism and hybridity, developed to unravel complex personal and political histories.
Across performance, collage, textiles and sculptural practice, Sebastian’s poetic interrogation of their own selfhood provides a prism, revealing a spectrum of possible alternatives for being in relation with others, lands, histories, and that which exists beyond tangible experience. Sebastian holds within themselves a range of complex tensions - their queer non-binary identity, their neurodivergence and their deeply spiritual relationship to the world, alongside their settler-colonial Australian heritage. All of these factors inform both their artistic methodologies as well as the critical framework within which their practice is situated.
‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ - Installation view at Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury - Image courtesy of the artist - 2024
‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ - Installation view at Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury - Image courtesy of the artist - 2024
The works in this exhibition hold these tensions and reveal a powerful interconnectedness between these states of being. The artworks bring forth other-than-human creatures - from hybrid zoomorphic bodies to amorphously gendered entities - who not only defy the so-called ‘natural’ order but also exist beyond it. Sebastian has spoken of their art practice as a ‘process of manifesting something-not-yet-known’, realised through queer and neurodivergent methodologies that are allied with esoteric practices. By holistically embracing these as alternative ways of being in the world, there is a genuine and powerful opportunity for new possibilities to emerge, beyond the persistent colonial logics that shape our reality.
All of these ideas are explored through the lens of their own lived experience and personal histories. We encounter family photographs, homoerotic male bodies, quilted fragments of their mother’s discarded clothes, the forms of spirits they have been in relation with since adolescence, alongside performance relics imbued with queer symbolism. Through these objects, Holding the Shadow While Calling Back The Light is a call to directly confront ancestral and societal traumas, while welcoming a joyful spectrum of possibilities beyond them.
All of these ideas are explored through the lens of their own lived experience and personal histories. We encounter family photographs, homoerotic male bodies, quilted fragments of their mother’s discarded clothes, the forms of spirits they have been in relation with since adolescence, alongside performance relics imbued with queer symbolism. Through these objects, Holding the Shadow While Calling Back The Light is a call to directly confront ancestral and societal traumas, while welcoming a joyful spectrum of possibilities beyond them.
‘The Seemingly Innocent Are Not Without Danger’ (detail) - calico, cotton thread, silver gelatin photographic print, reconstructed nylon flag - W:26 x H:18cm - 2024
‘Taut’ (detail) - calico, cotton thread, inkjet print on calico, reconstructed nylon flag, tin eyelets - W:35 x H:20cm - 2024
Acknowledgements
Benjamin Sebastian was raised on the stolen lands of the Djabugay and Yidinji peoples and pays respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
This exhibition is made possible with National Lottery Project Grants funding from Arts Council England and tours to CT20, Folkestone (1st - 29th November 2024), Gallery 1853, Oldham (4th April – 2nd May 2025) and VSSL Studio, London (Summer 2025) with further venues to be announced.
Benjamin would like to sincerely thank Ash McNaughton, Mine Kaplangı, Matteo Cortés, Bean, Jane Scarth, Marco Berardi, Baiba Sprance, Anna Marsland, Molly Clark, Robyn Ellen, John Chandler, Ant The Elder and the creative teams at Tanks Arts Centre, Gallery 1853, VSSL Studio, Hebert Read Gallery, Cooke’s Framing, FUTURERITUAL and CT20 - without whose input, support and collaboration, this exhibition would not have been possible.
Related Media
➣ Read Sebastian’s recent interview with ArtVerge HERE
➣ Listen to Sebastian’s recent conversation with Studio & Gallery 1853 and KUPOD for their Our Art Podcast HERE
Benjamin Sebastian was raised on the stolen lands of the Djabugay and Yidinji peoples and pays respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
This exhibition is made possible with National Lottery Project Grants funding from Arts Council England and tours to CT20, Folkestone (1st - 29th November 2024), Gallery 1853, Oldham (4th April – 2nd May 2025) and VSSL Studio, London (Summer 2025) with further venues to be announced.
Benjamin would like to sincerely thank Ash McNaughton, Mine Kaplangı, Matteo Cortés, Bean, Jane Scarth, Marco Berardi, Baiba Sprance, Anna Marsland, Molly Clark, Robyn Ellen, John Chandler, Ant The Elder and the creative teams at Tanks Arts Centre, Gallery 1853, VSSL Studio, Hebert Read Gallery, Cooke’s Framing, FUTURERITUAL and CT20 - without whose input, support and collaboration, this exhibition would not have been possible.
Related Media
➣ Read Sebastian’s recent interview with ArtVerge HERE
➣ Listen to Sebastian’s recent conversation with Studio & Gallery 1853 and KUPOD for their Our Art Podcast HERE
Pretty Doomed
2023
Ugly Duck (London)
Group Exhibition
ARTISTS:
Niya B, Mustafa Boğa, Nicky Broekhuysen, Elija Grybe, Nilbar Güreş, Chris Hawkes, Şafak Şule Kemancı, Tina Kohlmann, Adam Moore, Mitchell Moreno, Katarzyna Perlak, Alicia Radage, Sophie Seita, Victoria Suvoroff, Erdem Taşdelen, Funa Ye, ]performance s p a c e [ archive (keioui keijaun thomas, Bean), Benjamin Sebastian, Özlem Ünlü, Youngsook Choi, Tuna Erdem, Istanbul Queer Art Collective, Francis Whorrall-Campbell, Imogen Cleverley, Puer Deorum, Abigail McGinley, Erin Holly, Anya Palamartscuk, Magda Onatra, Ruiji Han, Hazel Blair, H. Alix Mourrier, Kasra Jalilipour, Feryel Atek, Susannah Pal, Rowan R, Peggy Huang, Daniel Felstead, Muzi, Finn Dovey, Bart Seng Wen Long, Yiwen Li, Chaney Diao, Juliusz Grabianski, Laura Kazaroff, Thom Grog, Pamela Enyonu.
ABOUT:
“Pretty Doomed has emerged from the intricate interplay of various emotions: the feelings of doom, unsustainability, exhaustion, and financial constraint juxtaposed with the sensations of fabulousness, queerness, vitality, and alignment with our core values. Our aim is to scrutinise the sustainability of our art community, explore new economic possibilities, foster mutual support, and extend an invitation to audiences, collectors, and friends to discover artists and their works, potentially making acquisitions. ‘Pretty Doomed’ will feature a group exhibition in the format of an art fair where each artworks will be on sale and a three-day program of performances, artist talks, discussions & conversations, and film screenings.”
CREDITS:
Pretty Doomed was curated & produced by Ugly Duck and Queer Art Projects, with support from VSSL Studio (financially support by Arts Council England) and contributions from ]performance s p a c e [.
Photographic and video documentation by Marco Berardi and Baiba Sprance.
Special thanks to Mine Kaplangi, Ash McNaughton, Tuna Erdem, Seda Ergu & Gozde Altun.
Group Exhibition
ARTISTS:
Niya B, Mustafa Boğa, Nicky Broekhuysen, Elija Grybe, Nilbar Güreş, Chris Hawkes, Şafak Şule Kemancı, Tina Kohlmann, Adam Moore, Mitchell Moreno, Katarzyna Perlak, Alicia Radage, Sophie Seita, Victoria Suvoroff, Erdem Taşdelen, Funa Ye, ]performance s p a c e [ archive (keioui keijaun thomas, Bean), Benjamin Sebastian, Özlem Ünlü, Youngsook Choi, Tuna Erdem, Istanbul Queer Art Collective, Francis Whorrall-Campbell, Imogen Cleverley, Puer Deorum, Abigail McGinley, Erin Holly, Anya Palamartscuk, Magda Onatra, Ruiji Han, Hazel Blair, H. Alix Mourrier, Kasra Jalilipour, Feryel Atek, Susannah Pal, Rowan R, Peggy Huang, Daniel Felstead, Muzi, Finn Dovey, Bart Seng Wen Long, Yiwen Li, Chaney Diao, Juliusz Grabianski, Laura Kazaroff, Thom Grog, Pamela Enyonu.
ABOUT:
“Pretty Doomed has emerged from the intricate interplay of various emotions: the feelings of doom, unsustainability, exhaustion, and financial constraint juxtaposed with the sensations of fabulousness, queerness, vitality, and alignment with our core values. Our aim is to scrutinise the sustainability of our art community, explore new economic possibilities, foster mutual support, and extend an invitation to audiences, collectors, and friends to discover artists and their works, potentially making acquisitions. ‘Pretty Doomed’ will feature a group exhibition in the format of an art fair where each artworks will be on sale and a three-day program of performances, artist talks, discussions & conversations, and film screenings.”
CREDITS:
Pretty Doomed was curated & produced by Ugly Duck and Queer Art Projects, with support from VSSL Studio (financially support by Arts Council England) and contributions from ]performance s p a c e [.
Photographic and video documentation by Marco Berardi and Baiba Sprance.
Special thanks to Mine Kaplangi, Ash McNaughton, Tuna Erdem, Seda Ergu & Gozde Altun.
Facet
2023
VSSL Studio (London)
Group Exhibition
ARTISTS:
Alicia Radage, Benjamin Sebastian, Rocío Boliver, June Lam, Marcin Gawin
ABOUT:
FACET serves as a window into the non-homogeneity of expanded queer experience, allowing for multifaceted readings of contemporary LGBTQIA* life, expression & identification. Through a variety of mediums such as performance (to camera), sculpture, video, photography, and installation - the exhibition offers a comprehensive and captivating look into the breadth of artistic approaches explored across VSSL Studios greater exhibition programme of 2023/24, showcasing the unique perspectives of each participating artist and the interconnectedness expanded queer experiences.
CREDITS:
Curated by VSSL Studio. Video & photographic Documentation by Baiba Sprance and Marco Berardi. Curatorial support from Ash McNaughton and Mine Kaplangi. Funded by Arts Council England.
Group Exhibition
ARTISTS:
Alicia Radage, Benjamin Sebastian, Rocío Boliver, June Lam, Marcin Gawin
ABOUT:
FACET serves as a window into the non-homogeneity of expanded queer experience, allowing for multifaceted readings of contemporary LGBTQIA* life, expression & identification. Through a variety of mediums such as performance (to camera), sculpture, video, photography, and installation - the exhibition offers a comprehensive and captivating look into the breadth of artistic approaches explored across VSSL Studios greater exhibition programme of 2023/24, showcasing the unique perspectives of each participating artist and the interconnectedness expanded queer experiences.
CREDITS:
Curated by VSSL Studio. Video & photographic Documentation by Baiba Sprance and Marco Berardi. Curatorial support from Ash McNaughton and Mine Kaplangi. Funded by Arts Council England.
