Rafael Barber Cortell is in charge of CentroCentro’s second annual curatorial project, Absolute Beginners, in which he has invited six artists to put on three exhibitions, working in pairs: Tai Shani and Florence Peake; Beatriz Olabarrieta and Patricia Domínguez; and Ludovica Carbotta and Diego Delas.

The origin of this first collaboration, Andromedad Sad Girl, lies in the research that Tai Shani and Florence Peake have carried out in some of the structures operating within the feminist discourses. This immersive installation, that was presented for the first time at Wysing Arts Centre in 2017, is understood as a kind of before within the timeline of the one  year program Absolute Beginners. Tai Shani and Florence Peake imagine for Andromedan Sad Girl a fictional scenario in the form of an archaeological site of a pre or postpatriarchal community. The artists take this place as a starting point from which to imagine fluid mythologies capable of representing non-hierarchical civilizations through a series of sculptures and mural paintings. Drawing on her performance practice, Peake has worked with dance artist Eve Stainton to generate the base for the wall painting/frieze. In addition, an audio piece created by Maxwell Sterling using Florence Peake vocals will study the sounds of voices in a pre-linguistic dimension that have yet to master a language not based on signs.  

Tai Shani’s (London, 1976) multidisciplinary practice, which comprises performance art, video, photography and sculpture, revolves around experimental narrative texts. Her work analyses everything from the most common and garden ways of narration to prose of a more theoretical nature. In this way, her practice addresses the construction of subjectivities and tries to subvert them by creating the basis for a post-patriarchal realism. Recently nominated for the 2019 Turner Price, her performances and installations have been presented at: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2019); Glasgow International (2018); Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2016); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2015); Southbank Centre and Serpentine Galleries in London (2014-15).

Florence Peake lives and works in London, where she has been working since 1995. Her performance art practice includes the use of drawing, painting, and sculpture, combined with objects that she has either found or manufactured, positioned in relation to the moving body. Space, the audience, recorded and live text, ingenuity and honesty are key elements in her work, which has been presented internationally at the Venice Biennale 2019 (Venice); De La Warr Pavilion 2018 (De La Warr); Palais de Tokyo 2018 (Paris); CRAC Occitanie 2018; Wysing 2017 (Cambridge); Serpentine Galleries and Whitechapel Gallery 2016 (London).

See the exhibition on Flickr