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Exhibition Tour: Bold Tendencies, London

Greetings from London, where a flock of construction cranes have punctuated the skyline, and hundreds of people anxiously wait in line to see an exhibition in a disused multi-story car park. That’s the backdrop of Bold Tendencies, an annual temporary exhibition taking place in Peckham that opened its 2015 edition Wednesday. This round was curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini, who commissioned the collectives Metahaven and AirBnB Pavilion. Check out images from the show below, and some bonus shots of the Derek Jarman Garden, which was commissioned in 2013. The project attempts to recreate Jarman’s garden at his seaside home in Dungeness–for more information, check out the Bold Tendencies website.

Metahaven: Possessed

The Amsterdam-based design collective Metahaven is creating a collection of garments. The collection is composed of three successive, monthly updates, following the opening date on July 1st and August 1st 2015. The intensely patterned pieces are an expression of the overdetermination of contemporary life by the anxieties of social media. Sandstorms and ruins, combined with haunting motives from an uncertain, but alluring future, recur inside a grid consisting of cell phones and gadgets.

The pieces will be displayed through Gray Non-Market, an expandable “megastructure” of wooden panels to be updated accordingly in three moments, transforming the space of the car park and its architecture. A mesmerizing soundscape created by Laurel Halo completes the installation. The project is a continuation of Metahaven’s earlier garment designs, Transparent Camouflage (2011) and Nomadic Chess (2013). It is part of the lead-up to the release of the feature-length film Possessed in 2016, co-written and co-directed by Metahaven and Rob Schröder.

AirBnB Pavilion: Aspects of Change

AIRBNB Pavilion transforms the space of the car park through a series of punctual interventions that use both the language of domesticity and interior public spaces.

In Aspects of Change, AIRBNB Pavilion explores the so-called young, fresh, thriving, eclectic, authentic, local, multicultural, colourful, pretty, bustling, vibrant, new, independent, hidden, pressed, organic, up-and-coming qualities of this transitory urban state with an installation in Level 8 of the car park. Playing with the interior quality of the site, the work extends the domestic research to a more urban condition. It raises questions about the existence of the local and the authentic within globalised production patterns, whether it is fair to call that transient space home, and if self-initiated projects are ultimately a form of self-sabotage

“Gentrification is a funky beast. A plea, a prospect, a curse. It’s the assertive mantra of London’s real-estate frontiering. And still, I can’t seem to get an uber out of Peckham. What happened to that bridge project connecting Peckham to Shoreditch? The beautification of existing infrastructure is integral to the contemporary processes of regeneration… I am so excited for the new Vetements shop. Why does the powerlessness of the State have to look so twee. An urban wallpaper that inevitably tends to its own obliteration. Cold-pressed Bellenden Road. Tumbleweaves. Reclaimed-happiness. Chem sesh in South Clapham. Split-Welfare. Regeneration refers to that distinct process by which suburban areas of the city previously reckoned as unapproachable, are over a certain amount of time ameliorated and rendered appetitive for external speculation. Do you take cards? Peckham is being regenerated. It’s young, fresh, contactless and thriving… I miss you Dalston. I just got the best shoes at Rye Lane Market. Your almond milk latte has never been this violent.”

Derek Jarman Garden

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Its only a frontier if you refuse to recognise the existing community as existing.
Is Hannah Barry sponsored by Alexander Lebedev?