Press Release
Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light
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
Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light
a touring exhibition by Benjamin Sebastian
• Herbert Read Gallery - Canterbury (UK, 2024)
• CT20 - Folkestone (UK, 2024)
• VSSL Studio - London (UK, 2025)
• Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Studios - Oldham (UK, 2025)
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. 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.
a touring exhibition by Benjamin Sebastian
• Herbert Read Gallery - Canterbury (UK, 2024)
• CT20 - Folkestone (UK, 2024)
• VSSL Studio - London (UK, 2025)
• Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Studios - Oldham (UK, 2025)
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. 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.
Installation view of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at VSSL Studio (London) - Image courtesy of VSSL Studio and Benjamin Sebastian - 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." 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.
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.
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Installation view of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at CT20 (Folkestone) - Image courtesy of CT20 and Benjamin Sebastian - 2024
About Benjamin Sebastian:
Benjamin Sebastian (1980 AUS/UK) is a trans-disciplinary visual artist and curator living in London (UK). Their work spans performance, sculpture, curation, video, text, installation, drawing & new media - rooted in processes of bricolage, assemblage, collage, ritual & DIY cultural production. Through harmonizing nonbinary perspectives, neurodivergent cognition and decolonial practice, Sebastian weaves nascent narratives into existence, offering alternative ways of remembering, being here-and-now, and charting pathways to futures yet formed.
They hold a BA Fine Art HONS (1st Class) from the University of Lincoln and MA Curating Art and Public Programmes through Whitechapel Gallery. Sebastian’s continued research interests include; artificial/synthetic intelligence, occult practices, queer ecologies, decolonialism, transhumanism, contemporary performance & visual art. Sebastian is a founding director of both ]performance s p a c e [ and VSSL Studio and their affiliated projects have received funding from Arts Council England, the British Council, Greater London Authority, Creative Folkestone, Kent County Council, Inspire Lewisham, Roger De Haan Charitable Trust and Live Art U.K. as well as other charities and local authorities.
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.
Installation view of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ at CT20 (Folkestone) - Image courtesy of CT20 and Benjamin Sebastian - 2024
About Benjamin Sebastian:
Benjamin Sebastian (1980 AUS/UK) is a trans-disciplinary visual artist and curator living in London (UK). Their work spans performance, sculpture, curation, video, text, installation, drawing & new media - rooted in processes of bricolage, assemblage, collage, ritual & DIY cultural production. Through harmonizing nonbinary perspectives, neurodivergent cognition and decolonial practice, Sebastian weaves nascent narratives into existence, offering alternative ways of remembering, being here-and-now, and charting pathways to futures yet formed.
They hold a BA Fine Art HONS (1st Class) from the University of Lincoln and MA Curating Art and Public Programmes through Whitechapel Gallery. Sebastian’s continued research interests include; artificial/synthetic intelligence, occult practices, queer ecologies, decolonialism, transhumanism, contemporary performance & visual art. Sebastian is a founding director of both ]performance s p a c e [ and VSSL Studio and their affiliated projects have received funding from Arts Council England, the British Council, Greater London Authority, Creative Folkestone, Kent County Council, Inspire Lewisham, Roger De Haan Charitable Trust and Live Art U.K. as well as other charities and local authorities.
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
Some of their most recent activities include: curating ‘Archipelago: Visions in Orbit’ at Whitechapel Gallery, performance of ‘Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light’ as part of Pretty Doomed at Ugly Duck (2023), exhibition of ‘Benjamin Sebastian + Alicia Radage’ at VSSL Studio (2023) curating ‘FACET’ at VSSL Studio (2023), guest curating the ‘Intersect series’ at the Live Art Development Agency (2023), speaking on the symposium; ‘Art, Memory & Place’ at Turner Contemporary (2022), as well as performance of their live installation ‘3 Reflections²’ as part of FUTURERITUAL at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2022).
www.benjamin-sebastian.com
Instagram: @benjaminsebastian
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Portrait of the artist in their studio - Photographed by Eda Sancakdar - 2024
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.
Notes to Editors:
Final listing Information (Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Studios, Oldham):
Contact:
For all press and media enquires please contact mine@vsslstudio.org
www.benjamin-sebastian.com
Instagram: @benjaminsebastian
Portrait of the artist in their studio - Photographed by Eda Sancakdar - 2024
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.
Notes to Editors:
- Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light - is a touring exhibition, that launched on the 12th of September (and ran until the 11th of October 2024) at Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury.
- Followed by a runs at CT20 (Folkestone, 2024), VSSL Studio (London, 2025), and Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Ssudios (Oldham, 2025).
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Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light is made possible with National Lottery Project Grants funding from Arts Council England.
- Additional high-resolution images and information are available upon request
Final listing Information (Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Studios, Oldham):
- Title: Holding The Shadow While Calling Back The Light
- Dates: 12th of April – 10th of May 2025
- Launch event: Friday the 11th of April, 6-9pm
- Public Programme: Saturday 19th of April, 1:30pm - Benjamin Sebastian in conversation with Luca Shaw (Mill 2 Gallery - Curator).
- Opening times: Thursday - Saturday: 11am - 4pm (Closed Sunday - Wednesday)
- Location: Mill 2 Gallery, 1853 Studios, Osborne Mill, Waddington St, Oldham OL9 6QQ
- Admission to the exhibition and accompanying public programme is free.
Contact:
For all press and media enquires please contact mine@vsslstudio.org
