IN THE SHADOWS OF A SUBTERRANEAN RIVER

Private View – 27th October 6-9pm

Opening Times:
October 27: 2-6pm
October 28: /29 12-7pm
October 30: 12-5pm

In the shadows of a subterranean river, in a place still haunted by the sound of fallen bombs and ghosts of London’s past – a group exhibition of work by 25 emerging artists from the MFA degree programme at Wimbledon College of Art. With works created in isolation from one another over the long summer months, the site of the exhibition itself is the unifying theme. Working across a broad spectrum of different media and visual languages, the artists were invited to respond to the charged atmosphere of the Crypt Gallery. In doing so, they were actively encouraged to explore new and unfamiliar modes of expression – to step beyond the boundaries of their existing practices.

Perhaps as distant as it is possible to get from a conventional ‘white box’ space, the Crypt Gallery’s spaces are drenched with the accumulated sediment of its past – as a coffin burial site, the bed of the Fleet River (now buried underground), an air raid shelter during both World Wars and still now the final resting place of 557 souls. In amongst its damp bricks, bare dirt floors, unearthed tombstones, heavy curved vaults and clattering chunks of raw earth, presence and history, the pervasive nature of this space issues an invitation, a demand, for the artists to carefully consider their responses to this tingling, vibrant, dark and watery setting.