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) - 31st Jan - 28th Feb 2025
• Gallery 1853, Oldham (UK) - 12th April - 10th May 2025
• Further tour dates to be announced in late 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) - 31st Jan - 28th Feb 2025
• Gallery 1853, Oldham (UK) - 12th April - 10th May 2025
• Further tour dates to be announced in late 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.
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:
Listing Information (Gallery 1853, Oldham):
Contact:
For all press and media enquires please contact mine@vsslstudio.org
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.
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
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) and VSSL Studio (London, 2025).
- Further exhibition runs will be announced in the summer of 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
Listing Information (Gallery 1853, Oldham):
- 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
- Opening times: Thursday - Saturday: 11am - 5pm (Closed Sunday - Wednesday)
- Location: Gallery 1853, 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
