Co-curated by
Connie Ashford & Katya Hudson
Connie Ashford & Katya Hudson
Racecar
Safehouse 1 & 2
October, 2025
Safehouse 1 & 2
October, 2025
With Ratiba Ayadi, Madeleine Bender, Caitlin Cox, Rebecca De Las Casas, Matthew Dardart, Lenka Della Porta, Emma Guareschi, Fran Hayes, Katya Hudson, Beatty Hudson, Katie Lane, Aylin Leipold, Aimee Lyon, Rosy Schofield, Vincent Schefz, Mykyta Shkliaruk, Daisy Tortuga
Exhibition text
Racecar was originally conceived in 2020, before personal and global circumstances shifted, before we had really grown up. As life resumed in fragments, the artists followed the well-worn paths that many graduates have trodden: side-jobs, moves abroad, and the early onset of “realistic thinking”. Bringing together emergent artists within the first ten years of their practice, the exhibition primarily features those based in London, alongside other practitioners from Ukraine, France and across the UK.
Like its title, a palindrome, Racecar loops back on itself. Across a range of media, including sculpture, print, sound, and performance, the works are made from materials both temporal and lasting, tracing the passing of time and how it distorts memory, the slow drift and delay between thought and action. Rather than a fixed, linear narrative, we propose a clarity akin to memory: formed through the overlay of perspectives across shared departures. What emerges is not unlike a moiré pattern; dependent on an active relationship between the works and the viewer to align.
Taking place between the husks of two neighbouring buildings, Safehouse 1 and 2, the exposed walls and missing roof echo the incorporeal subjects traced throughout the works. As we move through the space, we find recurring narratives: fragmentation, ritual and confessions as a means of processing. Portrayed separately by the individual artists, placed together, they capture a shared experience. The works bear imprints of passing years, blurred, scratched, erased – while pauses, remnants, and unrealised proposals remain the fabric of this exhibition. An open circuit, shaped by a period of dormancy, is an invitation to revisit something you once set aside. Text by Co-curators
Like its title, a palindrome, Racecar loops back on itself. Across a range of media, including sculpture, print, sound, and performance, the works are made from materials both temporal and lasting, tracing the passing of time and how it distorts memory, the slow drift and delay between thought and action. Rather than a fixed, linear narrative, we propose a clarity akin to memory: formed through the overlay of perspectives across shared departures. What emerges is not unlike a moiré pattern; dependent on an active relationship between the works and the viewer to align.
Taking place between the husks of two neighbouring buildings, Safehouse 1 and 2, the exposed walls and missing roof echo the incorporeal subjects traced throughout the works. As we move through the space, we find recurring narratives: fragmentation, ritual and confessions as a means of processing. Portrayed separately by the individual artists, placed together, they capture a shared experience. The works bear imprints of passing years, blurred, scratched, erased – while pauses, remnants, and unrealised proposals remain the fabric of this exhibition. An open circuit, shaped by a period of dormancy, is an invitation to revisit something you once set aside. Text by Co-curators
Yozhik v Tumani
IZOLYATSIA, Kyiv
June, 2022
IZOLYATSIA, Kyiv
June, 2022
Exhibition text:
A gin-marinated audience of two sat smoking outside the emtpty bar. Steeped, in alcohol and conversation they did not notice the horse-sized dog passing by. The dog walked his owner. Moderate daily exercise. His stride was demanding, pulling along the straggly-haired man dressed in all black.
A gentle giant on the whole, Puccini made him sentimental, and . Madame Butterfly was his favourite.
He had been so moved by the rendition "O mio babbino caro”, he bit her. Shallowly sinking his deeth into Saeko’s arm before the chorus close.
He has never done that before, he heard Yugolia insisting. It doesn’t happen often she had assured the guests. There are not many who know that opera by heart.
Through a collection of twenty-four lager than life photographs Yozhik v Tumane invites the viewer to question the autoficticious reality of 2022. Staged black and white prints explore the object permanace which narrativising life in isolation.
A gentle giant on the whole, Puccini made him sentimental, and . Madame Butterfly was his favourite.
He had been so moved by the rendition "O mio babbino caro”, he bit her. Shallowly sinking his deeth into Saeko’s arm before the chorus close.
He has never done that before, he heard Yugolia insisting. It doesn’t happen often she had assured the guests. There are not many who know that opera by heart.
Through a collection of twenty-four lager than life photographs Yozhik v Tumane invites the viewer to question the autoficticious reality of 2022. Staged black and white prints explore the object permanace which narrativising life in isolation.
Postcards to Sleeping AI
Dream diary entries cycled through AI.
Molytva, Demonstratsya [A prayer, a protest.]
This piece functions as a shrine. A place of worship to pay homage to the Ukrainian spirit in the flux of upheaval. A people use to turbulent changes in regime, the practice of shrine building is commonplace. Protest posters represent the ongoing fight for identity, using language from rebel Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka - then and now identifying as Ukrainian can cost you your life. This is a protest, a call to arms, a prayer for freedom of the Ukrainian spirit, it will not be silenced . As we sing in our national anthem:
‘Sche be vmerla Ukraina’ - ‘Ukraine is not dead yet’.
‘Sche be vmerla Ukraina’ - ‘Ukraine is not dead yet’.
A Language of Protest
The Ukrainian flag is a stripe of yellow representing its fields of wheat and blue representing the sky. In a time of war, a reimagining of the flag to show the conflict and reflect the feelings of Ukrainians at the time, using written word, and original colours of yellow and blue.
Intended as protest pieces, the flags are shown in public places to make their message heard.
Intended as protest pieces, the flags are shown in public places to make their message heard.