Move Away from the Aubergine
Esmeralda Valencia Lindström
5 December 2019 - 5 February 2020
Weston Studio, RA Schools
Saturday – Thursday 10am-6pm
Fridays 10am-10pm
Free, no booking required.
Through video and sculpture, Royal Academy Schools graduate Esmeralda Valencia Lindström explores spaces across the RA from the perspective of animals, plants and the architecture itself.
Move Away from the Aubergine presents alternative views: ways of looking that are close-up, below, above and to-the-side. Proposing movement as a starting point for empathy, these works seek to lead us into the routes, gestures and vibrations of other species and materials.
These new works respond to the Royal Academy’s buildings — Burlington House and Burlington Gardens. Valencia Lindström focuses on the various animal and plant species that might coexist here, as well as the architectural surfaces and shapes that make up the Royal Academy.
Esmeralda Valencia Lindström (b. 1983 Gothenburg) graduated from The Slade School of Fine Art in 2007 and the Royal Academy Schools in 2011. Her work reflects on the interlinked existences of materials, plants, people and animals; Focusing on movement, activity and the process of making itself, she produces objects, installations, performances and videos.
Saturday – Thursday 10am-6pm
Fridays 10am-10pm
Free, no booking required.
Supporters
Supported by
Supported by
With special thanks to
Image gallery
Roof lichen sample (production still), 2019
Auditorium Plants (production still), 2019
Instruction for dancers (still), 2019
Percy (still), 2019
Short film screening: 'Jakriborg' + sound work by Lee Fraser
Jakriborg records the site of a recent private housing project in the south of Sweden from the perspective of two dogs called Agnes and Cilla. Jakriborg was designed as an ideal place to live, modelled on medieval Dutch and German cities. Valencia Lindström attached cameras to the dogs to make the film. This work is part of Valencia Lindström’s interest in non-human experiences of space and architectural settings as backgrounds against which movement is measured.
Lee Fraser will produce a sound composition existing as a parallel element in the space. The sound will explore and exploit the flaws of the human auditory system, undermining the scope of human cognition. Lee Fraser (b. 1981) is a sound artist and composer based in London. Drawing from the fields of psychoacoustics and acousmatic theory, his works produce complex auditory situations; reflecting on the act of listening itself, and dramatise notions of interiority, liminality and the outside.
Interactive dry rot tour
The tour takes inspiration from how the fungi Serpula Lacrimans, or dry rot, can spread through architecture. You'll wear magnifying glasses and kneepads, to look in extreme detail at the materials of the floors and walls of the Royal Academy. We won’t be looking for dry rot, which does not exist at the RA – the aim of the tour is to imagine ourselves taking on a different form or perhaps merging with the materials we are looking at.
All equipment will be provided – please note that during the tour we will crouch on all fours to look in detail at the materials in the floors of the Royal Academy.
To sign up or if you have any questions about the nature of tour or its accessibility, contact joanna.thomas@royalacademy.org.uk.