Binita Walia and Emilia Telese discuss their new work for ‘Modern Women’ which opens at Airspace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent this month.
‘Modern Women’ explores shared experiences of gender roles and cultural migration. Utilising performance, photography, jewellery, and film, these two artists create iconic, strong images expressing potent messages around crucial ssues. Conversation will include debate around gender roles, inequality, race and ethnicity, and stereotypes. The artists will also discuss their creative processes, and collaboration.
Do join us. SAWCC London’s artist dialogue is part of a series of ‘Modern Women’ debates and events.
About the Artists:
Emilia Telese explores the boundary between personal history and universal condition. Her work includes elements of autobiography combined with conscious engagement, political and social debate, and the questioning and deconstruction of behaviour. In her work, she makes use of performance, installation, interactive technology, film, literature, and public art. Her works for ‘Modern Women’ continue her line of research exploring the image of women in the media, beauty stereotypes and the distorted image of self. They include a site-specific installation on domestic violence, a series of billboards with performative elements combining iconic Hollywood imagery with gender stereotypes in the South of Italy, and a series of large-scale photographs reprising the Renaissance icon motif in an everyday, contemporary setting.
Binita Walia explores personal historic and contemporary cultural reference points to reference domesticity, relationships and responsibilities. Her works for ‘Modern Women’ explore cultural rebelliousness, gender heritage, and women’s sense of duty. The works utilise video, textiles, and everyday objects; including an installation using an heirloom sari, a series of sculptural aluminium cooking vessels and gold leaf exploring emotional values of food, a video artwork exploring the romanticism felt when buying one’s wedding sari, and a jewellery piece utilising gold to elevate the mundanity of everyday chores. Binita also creates large scale site-specific architectural glass commissions — mapping cultural, social and physical landscapes within communities.
Modern Women (Airspace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent) is an exhibition featuring the work of Emilia Telese and Binita Walia, exploring shared experiences of gender roles and cultural migration.
The exhibit links the two artists’ diverse body of work, exploring challenges and issues faced by women from cultural backgrounds in Asia and the Mediterranean — such as stereotypes, rigid gender roles, inequality, honour killings/feminicide, as well as implications of cultural migration and multiculturalism in society. Works featured utilise site-specific installation, performance, photography, jewellery, video, and textile media to create iconic, strong images that aim to provoke and challenge the viewer. Both artists utilise elements of real life and cultural background references to create powerful messages around current social and political issues.
AirSpace Gallery’s windows also serve as a billboard, recreating well-known film posters featuring female heroines. Each artist appears in a film poster of their opposite cultures: Binita Walia as the heroine of an Italian film, and Emilia Telese as that of an Indian film.
This event is open to men and women.
Fri 20 February 7.30pm Free
Rich Mix (Upstairs, Venue 2 — room next to bar area)
35-47 Bethnal Green Rd, Shoreditch, London E1 6LA
About SAWCC
SAWCC London (pronounced “saucy”) — the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective — are a creative network of women artists and appreciators with origins from, or a keen interest in South Asia and diaspora. SAWCC nurture independently-forged British South Asian female creative expression across disciplines. Featuring free ‘bi-monthlies’ (often women-only), and popular public events, SAWCC offer a platform for women to share, develop, and promote creative ideas and works. Founded in 2004, SAWCC London is a sister organisation of SAWCC New York, a vibrant respected arts organisation
Website: www.sawcc.org/community/sawcc-london/
Email: sawcc-london@sawcc.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/sawcclondon
Twitter: @SAWCC_London
HERitage stall this Saturday 29th January at St Cuthbert's hall, Amble. Come along, see you there