(being with)
breaking ground
Inhabiting the serf project space throughout a three-week period artist Charlotte Cullen will engage with the space to be with their material, understanding new processes, inviting new materials, returning to previous form and expanding within the space. Laying the groundwork for an upcoming solo exhibition in Edinburgh, Cullen will consider previous practice alongside new experimentation and establish a space to encounter avenues of research.
Exposing this being with over the shaky ground of February 29th, join Cullen at serf as some new, some old and some in process or undefined works are sifted through ways of thinking and ways of being.
Private viewing Friday 28th February
Reactions and reflections Saturday 29th February
Leeds central library handling session at serf, including rare first edition and archival stock expanding on areas of research
Text and performances from Cullen and invited artists
Critique and contemplation Sunday 1st March
Beginning at serf there will be a discussion and critique of the exhibition
Film screening at HMI
Artist and researcher Charlotte Cullen creates environments grounded in the land, working through sculpture, installation and text. Scavenged and ephemeral materials entwine with formal material enquiries in metal and clay. Site is enacted as geological space for excavation, symbiotic (un)learning, resistance and healing. Intergenerational trauma, sickness and the body are manifest as material, physical encounters.
Recent sculptures The Retreat of the Warrior seek to find safety and a place to heal from the ground, to take respite so to fight again. The work is weed like, finding methods and materials from the ground to build and restore. Twigs become additional limbs, protruding from a metal vertebrate to make new appendages, clay is dug from the ground to heal wounds, while broken materials from man-made waste create hybrid new attack strategies in the warrior’s arsenal.
A member of artist-led studio and project space serf, Leeds, Cullen is involved in serf off-site projects and serf school, serf’s peer to peer learning programme. Previously they were founder and curator of U N N A W A Y, Huddersfield. Their research considers a material repositioning of artist-led practice and ecologies. They completed their practice led PhD at the University of Huddersfield in 2018.