Press Release

This year Gasworks celebrates 25 years. The organisation has worked with over 500 artists from 80 countries around the world through residencies, exhibitions, public events and studio provision.

Quantum Ghost is the first UK solo exhibition by Bristol-based artist Libita Clayton, mapping a journey through archives and territories related to her family history.

 

 

International Archives 1st half of 2019

Libita Clayton, Quantum Ghost

Gasworks, London (United Kingdom)

24.01 - 24.03.2019

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© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2019. All Rights Reserved

The exhibition of Libita Clayton, Quantum Ghost, presents an immersive sound installation, large-scale photograms and a programme of live performances that unearth the subterranean histories and political undercurrents connecting the mining regions of Namibia and Cornwall. From mined ores and sedimentary rocks to precious metals and rare earths, Clayton’s work examines the raw materials at the core of capitalist extraction, revealing how the echoes of colonialism reverberate through the deep time of geology.

Conceived as an exercise in sound archaeology, the show summons a polyphony of ancestral voices in the form of a lament, while exploring the unheard sounds of a mineral landscape that is haunted by the ghosts of colonialism and extraction. The often inaudible rhythms of geological phenomena (from slow-moving magma to the radioactive decay of uranium into lead) resonate with the violent flows of natural resources and human bodies across history.

Quantum Ghost is commissioned and produced by Gasworks. In late 2019 the work will travel to Spike Island, Bristol. This exhibition is part of the Freelands Artist Programme, which offers artists based outside London a three-month residency and a solo exhibition at Gasworks. Quantum Ghost is also supported by Arts Council England.

Libita Clayton, Untitled, 2018. Photograph. Courtesy of the artist and Brain the Tool.

Exhibition January 24 - March 23, 2019. Gasworks, 155 Vauxhall Street - London SE11 5RH (United Kingdom). Hours : Wed-Sun, 12-6pm or by appointment. Free admission.