In summer, Southwark Park Galleries will present an extensive installation by multidisciplinary artist Tim Spooner for his largest UK solo exhibition in a visual arts organisation. Spooner has been creating immersive sculptural interventions and performances since 2010, which have been predominantly experienced within theatre settings. Split across both out galleries, Spooner will work on a more ambitious scale than has been possible before.
A new commission for Dilston Gallery will continue Spooner’s exploration of using mechanics and animatronics to bring liveness, agency and unpredictability that transforms the audiences’ perceptions and expectations of what makes a sculpture. Our Lake Gallery will exhibit the breadth of his wider practice by staging a theatrical encounter of his recent works in collage, painting, sculpture and performative objects.
A New Kind of Animal is a national touring exhibition co-commissioned by Southwark Park Galleries and Bluecoat, made possible with thanks to Arts Council England and The Paul and Louise Cooke Endowment.
Performances
The Telescope
Saturday 5 August
2pm, 3.15pm, 4.30pm (25 min each)
Lake Gallery, Salter Space
The Telescope is an intimate performance that looks through a broken telescope at a world which responds to being watched, a reflection of the watcher. A microscope camera reveals a universe of miniature objects manipulated using magnets, electricity and chemical reactions, presented live as a documentary account of an uncertain landscape.
Infinite Crumple
Saturday 23 – Sunday 24 September
11am – 5pm
Dilston Gallery
Originally made on residency at Lenz Fondazione in Parma, Infinite Crumple is a performance with a gigantic shaking piece of aluminium foil. The work is a response to Paradise, the third part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, a 14th Century text of the authors journey through heaven.
Free, no booking required.
Biography
TIM SPOONER (b. 1984, based in Cornwall). Recent projects include A Wave in a Cave (2021), a solo exhibition for Commonage Gallery, and large-scale moving sculpture installations Weak Transmission for Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2021 / Westflügel Leipzig, and Animal Place, commissioned for Brighton Festival 2022.
Spooner’s work has been presented extensively in theatres and festivals in the UK, Europe and Asia including: Southbank Centre (London), Battersea Arts Centre (London), b-side festival (Isle of Portland), Cambridge Junction, Mayfest (Bristol), MAC Belfast and DCA Dundee (for Hayward Gallery Touring), Barbican Art Gallery (London), Whitstable Biennale, NoD (Prague, Czechia), LASfest (Bialystok, Poland), Terni Festival (Italy), TJP Strasbourg (France), Actoral Festival (Marseille, France), Schaubude (Berlin, Germany), Internationales Figurentheater Festival (Erlangen, Germany), STUK (Leuven, Belgium), Teatro Maria Matos (Lisbon, Portugal), Culture Station Seoul (South Korea), Pesta Boneka Festival (Yogyakarta, Indonesia) and Macau Arts Festival (China).
Launch Gallery
