“And she could see contours of other worlds and other times, stretched out above and below ours.
She could also see things that cannot be described in words.”
Primeval and Other Times, Olga Tokarczuk
Primeval
3 - 25 Feb 2023
Unit 1 Gallery| Workshop
1 Bard Road, London, W10 6TP
PV: 2nd February, 6 - 9pm
Collective East is delighted to announce our first group exhibition of 2023 hosted by Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop.
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Borrowing its title from the novel Primeval and Other Times by the Nobel Prize recipient Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, Primeval brings together eight women and LBGTQI+ artists, with a special focus on practitioners of Central and Eastern European heritage.
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Tokarczuk’s novel is populated with anthropomorphic creatures, angels, ghosts and old gods that dwell in the ancient forest of its rural Poland, while the habitants of the neighbouring sheltered village are struggling to keep up as modernity and the outside world seeps into their lives. In this peculiar microcosm myth and modernism, old and new religions, human and non-human exist on a non-linear chronology where time seems to cyclically collapse and be reborn.
The exhibition features a mix of media, including ceramics, glass, painting and clay, from artists whose diverse practice also interrogates questions of cosmogonies, and challenges our traditional understandings of existing systems of hierarchies.
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PV drinks generously provided by Brew By Numbers.
Primeval Exhibition Installation View courtesy of Paul Tucker Photography and Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop
Primeval Exhibition Installation View courtesy of Paul Tucker Photography and Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop
Bartlomiej Hajduk
Milda Lembertaitè
Jean-François Krebs
Rosie McLachlan
Karolina Dworska
Simona Orentaitè
Katia Kesic
Sophie Birch
Installation views, Primeval, February 2023. Images courtesy of Paul Tucker Photography and Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop