Fancy pondering over a spot of thought-provoking art in an ancient crypt? Of course you do.
First-time curators bare/not projects bring their début show to the cavernous myriad of tunnels that is The Crypt Gallery. The show will encompass a wide array of thought-provoking restriction-grappling works across the mediums of sculpture, film, photography, painting and design. In a world where conformity rears its ugly, generic head often enough and the media supposedly dictates and doles out the freedoms, privileges and labels inherent in our lives, this innovative bunch of artists ask if it's not our own feeble grasp of autonomy which is actually to blame. Philosophical perhaps, but undeniably intriguing.
Caged Bird Sings offers a sweeping lesson in how to culturally and socially define the frustratingly ambiguous words, 'restriction', 'claustrophobia', and 'freedom' and how these translate into a darker subculture of violence, sex trafficking and 24-hour surveillance. Touching on stereotypes, racism, sexism, moral panic, political and religious beliefs, the exhibition throws up impossible, unanswerable conundrums: “Is what we feel as an act of freedom lived as an act of violence by someone else?” “Does a world without conflict and cliché really exist” and most fundamentally, “Is it even freedom we strive for?” There's even a little bit of dear old Roland Barthes thrown in for good measure.
So for those who like to get their thinking caps on, who like a bit of a challenge or who are just attracted by the novelty of seeing an art exhibition in a damp and dingy crypt, Caged Bird Sings promises a whole lot of art with a little slither of theory.
Caged Bird Sings is on at St Pancras Parish Church 16-20 April.
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