THE FARMYARD IS NOT A VIOLENT PLACE AND I LOOK EXACTLY LIKE JUDY GARLAND
Alex Margo Arden & Caspar Heinemann
28.11.2019 — 26.01.2020
Open 12-6pm Thursday-Sunday
Performances 7-9pm: Thursday 28th, Friday 29th & Saturday 30th November 2019, Sunday 1st & Friday 13th December 2019, Wednesday 22nd, Thursday 23rd, Friday 24th, Saturday 25th & Sunday 26th January 2020
Doors open at 7pm and the performance will start promptly at 7.30pm. Each performance is ticketed at a price of £4.76. and are available here
Cell Project Space presents a collaboration between artist Alex Margo Arden and artist-writer Caspar Heinemann, which takes the form of a theatre space and a play acted out in varying intervals over the course of the exhibition. The production emerges from several years of friendship and conversation around the artists’ shared interests in pre-history, gender illusion, marginalised mediumship, ‘the end’ of ‘the world’, theatrical convention, soft power, binary oppositions, cults, chronic wounds, puppetry, and fate.
Arden and Heinemann will be ‘going camping’ in the gallery space as universe, with an entirely collapsible stage set. Acting as sole writers, directors, choreographers, performers, set, costume, lighting, and sound designers, the artists will structure a series of transitional moments, bringing a counterpoint to the traditional language of theatre and coercing the audiences into communal psychological engagement. Between performances the deactivated space will evoke a closed shop, or off-season seaside town, and will be accessible as an exhibition to the public from Thursday—Sunday 12—6pm.
The play text, which includes non-stageable segments designed to challenge the directors and performers, will become a standalone publication depicting relics of the production process and traces of the imaginative labour. Launching in 2020, the publication will become part of an ongoing series of commissioned writing, the first being ‘Partners’, Ghislaine Leung, published in January 2018 and the second ‘Shit and Doom - NO!art’ published in September 2019.
Alex Margo Arden is an artist based in London. Her previous projects have been presented at The Royal Standard, Liverpool; Matthew Gallery, New York; AND/OR, London; Serf, Leeds. She has an ongoing relationship with Montez Press, writing for the 'Interjection Calendar Project 'and recently featuring on 'Montez Radio'. She graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she won the Hamad Butt Memorial Prize.
Caspar Heinemann is an artist, writer and poet based in London. His solo exhibitions have been presented at Outpost Gallery, Norwich; Almanac, London; and KevinSpace, Vienna. Recent group exhibitions have been held at Georg Kargl Fine Arts,Vienna; ICA, London; Cabinet, London; and PDX Contemporary, Portland. Heinemann participated in the 2019 Bergen Assembly, and has recently read at Camden Arts Centre, Sussex Poetry Festival and Tate Modern. His first poetry collection ‘Novelty Theory’ was published in 2019 by The 87 Press.
Curator Milika Muritu
Developed with the generous support of the Elephant Trust,
Cockayne & London Community Foundation and Arts Council England