Head to Wysing for the launch of our next exhibition Boundary + Gesture, curated by Taylor Le Melle. The exhibition features works by Aslan Gaisumov, Derica Shields, a major new commission by Dominique White, and publications from PSS.

As part of Wysing’s 30th birthday programme, Le Melle developed the exhibition during their Art Fund supported residency at Wysing earlier in 2019 during which they convened a series of public events that explored notions of property and monetisation.

Boundary + Gesture presents works that situate explorations of gesture and property within landscapes of ‘the rural’. Developed as exhibition-as-research, this experimental exhibition format brings art works in conversation with archival material and texts.

A new commission by UK artist Dominique White will encompass the entirety of Wysing’s gallery and responds to research on Black subjectivity, shipwreck and the Sargasso Sea, navigating a dialogue between the body and material. Repurposing sails, combining fabrics with kaolin clay and galvanised steel, White’s sculptures channel the aquatic landscape as a site of possibilities, and a way of ‘escaping the body and destroying what was held captive’.

Aslan Gaisumov’s video works ‘Volga’ (2015) and ‘Scythian Journey’ (2019) will be presented in separate screening rooms, and consider the idea of testimony as well as proprietary law in relation to intimate and state histories of forced migration.

In Wysing’s reception, a polyvocal work by writer and researcher Derica Shields uses archival material surrounding 18th century court cases to create speculative histories. Reconfiguring museum display through sound, Shields will present three fraying, divergent oral fictions that examine property law as debated and lived during what is called Britain’s era of abolition.

PSS, Le Melle’s publishing project with editor/researcher Rowan Powell will present three new pamphlets that further expand on ideas within the exhibition. Rowan Powell presents a new text that links the history of land enclosures in Britain with a story recorded by French surgeon Ambroise Pare in his 1573 text On Monsters and Marvels. A joint new text by Le Melle and artist Aslan Guaimov frames his works in the context of global colonial histories. Using Le Melle’s preferred methodology of foraging existing content, the final text will excerpt writer, curator and artist, Imani Robinson’s essay and ongoing film project “Black Testimony” to accompany Dominique White’s new commission.