Slug presents: AS FRAGILE AS A BOMB

3 Mar-12 Mar 2023

Overview

Curated by Kenny Alexander Laurence and Lucia Russo Thomson in collaboration with Lewisham Arthouse

Featuring works by
Camilla De Siati
Alicia Gioia
Kenny Alexander Laurence
Alessandro Macciardi
Anie Maki
Rebecca Momoli
Marco Resta
Lucia Russo Thomson

The world as it presents itself is in a state of decay, having been steadily distorted and pushed to deviate from life in its most honest form. All that is left is mutated, contorted and trampled by its insalubrious context.

As the many institutions that enforce laws of exploitation for economic gain and many forms of intolerance and oppression to instate control vehemently reign, disobedience is the only prospect.
The shape of the future is in the hands of the young, in the hands of rebels, of individuals that in their contact with these mortifying forces choose to fight. Escaping the grip of the mechanics of the contemporary is a necessity. It arises the desire of breaking into a stampede with enough force to reshape the world.

Yet we are fragile but not like glass or a flower, like a bomb.

To uncover the libidinal component of this ubiquitous captivity the sexes explode as a reaction to the ankylosis enforced by the grid ever-present. Left is only the end of all things. It is the Judgment Day – ruled by Pluto – the planet of death and rebirth.
The revolution will be bound in flames of rebellion and this arson will not end in a standstill. A wildfire, as mortiferous as it may look and feel, always lays a fertile ground for new growth, it levels the field. Destruction and pain are definitive as ripping gestures that enact change. There lies an inherent trait of life that brings on healing and transformation, as individuals and collectives that exist and collide in the turbulent flow of the world are antifragile.

The Stoic belief of ekpyrosis, an apocalypse by fire that cleanses the universe, now appears as
relevant as ever. It is in the natural order of things to oxidize. It is to alchemically bind to the world and naturally become active agents of its destruction.

This is a call to action.

Let this world end in fire.

AS FRAGILE AS A BOMB contributes to a discourse that touches on cultural paradoxes, surrealist practices, critical fabulation, posthuman theories, and radical politics to unveil uncharted paths.
Through a visual narration ranging from sculptural installations, poetry, photographs, textiles and ceramics a system of demolition takes shape and ideology is shattered by empathy and critical thinking. The exhibition lives as a system of seditious acts of insurgence towards the mechanics of contemporary human society. The works of art – as bombshells – conjugate the urgency and desire for a new revolution through the artistic mediums.

It is a centrifugal exploration that starts from the condition of the self and one’s relationship to history and culture and ultimately projects outwards to unveil the geometries that shape human life and by association its contexts.

With a sense of urgency the exhibition suggests pondering on different ways of birthing a new world.

SLUG – Instagram: @slug_area – [email protected]

Slug is the name that refers to the area outside of the printing and bleed areas of a page. As a collective endeavour Slug’s focus is to deconstruct the idea of the margin to encourage contamination. Slug aims to offer both a physical and virtual space where selected artist can merge their unique experiences to generate, create and exhibit work across borders. Community is fundamental to Slug’s ethos as a young artist collective.