The SPACEX secondment took place in August – November 2022. During this period, I focused on my current research on the watery molecular biopolitics of mass toxicity. My research investigates the site specificity of galleries located next to a river, canal or seaport, which leaks into the conceptual underpinnings of their exhibitions and the material conditions of their buildings.
At the RCA, I was involved in meetings with artists and researchers, working in the library and Sculpture department at the Battersea and South Kensington campus. I joined MA Sculpture students on a walking tour of Battersea Park to visit a temporary work called ‘Making Marks’ installed on the site of Barbara Hepworth’s Single Form, which is currently on loan.
The secondment at the RCA has allowed me to become an active member of the ‘Planetary’ group organised by Josephine Berry and Catherine Ferguson for the RCA Earthwise Project. This involved site visits to the Phytology Nature Reserve and Community Project and Eduardo Padhila/ Balin House Projects. The Planetary cohort contributed to the ‘Earthwise’ Pamphlet publication, where I included a chapter on ‘Toxicity.’ This was based on research I had developed over the course of the secondment. I also presented a text panel called ‘The Gallery Holds the Politics of Mass Toxicity at the Molecular Scale’ for the exhibition component of the ‘Earthwise’ project at Beaconsfield Gallery, London.
Concurrently, I am part of the ‘Spaces of Coalescence’ Project which brings together RCA lecturers and post-graduate students, as well as external researchers attached to SPACEX-Rise, including Jaspar Joseph-Lester, Melanie Jackson, Simon King, K. Yoland, Osman Yousefzada, Carmen Maria Mascal, Marisa Ferreira, Ludovica Fales, Ahuvia Kahane and Vittorio Lervese. During the SPACEX-Rise training event in Dublin, we met as a group to discuss plans for the project.
Georgia Perkins