Press Release
The Grounds We Tread
20 April – 19 June 2016
JiříKovanda20 – 28 April
Lloyd Corporation 6-15 May
IlonaSagar24-31 May
Cara Tolmie 8 – 19 June
Private View: 6:30-8:30pm, 19 April with performance by JiříKovanda
Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park, London SW11
Pump House Gallery relaunches in April with The Grounds We Tread, a series of consecutiveindividual performative works and solo exhibitions that dynamically transform the Gallery and the spaces beyond.New commissions and existing works by JiříKovanda, Lloyd Corporation,IlonaSagar and Cara Tolmieexplore the fascination with tracking our health through technology; the manipulative power of live singing; amateur forms of advertising and announcement in public places; and the negotiation and use of public and private areas.
The Grounds We Treadexhibition leads a new programme of the same nameby international and emerging contemporary artists including Lawrence Abu-Hamdan and Samara Scott responding to Battersea Park and the rapidly changing urban landscape of Wandsworth and Nine Elms. Exploring ideas of public space and intimacy, the programme also celebrates Pump House Gallery as a new contemporary art space for London. The Gallery ismanaged by Enable Leisure & Culture on behalf of Wandsworth Council, and the programme is supported by Arts Council England.
JiříKovanda(20 – 28 April) is best known for his pioneering performances in Prague during the Communist regime using his body to create disruptive public actions ranging from the bizarre to the barely noticeable, and often challenging social taboos. His best-known work, Kissing Through Glass(2007) at Tate Modern, allowed members of the public to kiss him – mouth to mouth -through a large glass window. Kovandaopens his exhibition at Pump House Gallery with a playful spontaneous performance, and new interventions comprising objects usually designed to hold something such as a plinth, photo frame and flagholder, but which are left empty and perceived invisible. Kovanda’s 1970s actions are also presented on the walls of the Gallery as unframed works, produced on the in house printer.
Lloyd Corporation (6-15 May) is a collaboration between artists Ali Eisa and Sebastian Lloyd Rees encompassing sculpture, installation, print and video. Their work explores the processes, objects and materials of industrial production, construction, interior design and commercial display in the contemporary urban environment. For The Grounds We Tread, they have assembled a group of artists, amateurs and enthusiasts through a diverserange of networks to represent the rapidly changing urban landscapes of Nine Elms and Battersea through media such as watercolour painting.Alongside the exhibition of these works, displayed in unexpected areas of the Gallery, is material gathered from a new classified advertising campaign initiated by the artists, and from their archive of classified adverts and flyposters.
IlonaSagar(24-31 May) has a practice spanningperformance, film and assemblage that responds to the social, historical and cultural contexts of occupied private and public space. For her new live performance and multimedia installation, Sagar draws on contemporary medical and neurological research and archival material relating to progressive medical, social and political experiments undertaken in the early twentieth century.
Cara Tolmie(8 – 19 June) brings The Grounds We Tread to a close with We Touch Talking the Hum, the artist’s long-term project investigating fundamental questions about what it means to sing live in front of others, and how the use of the voice as a rhetorical, seductive agent might be corrupted and re-configured through experimentation in performance making. For her installation, performance and workshop Tolmie extends her research towards consideration of the body that enunciates and the sounds that accompany this singing voice.
Ned McConnell, Exhibitions Curator for Pump House Gallery, said “The performative nature of the artistic practices featured in The Grounds We Tread takes on important ideas about public space, how we inhabit it with ourselves, our social relations, our languages, and our technologies. The public sphere is always governed in some way and this exhibition complicates our understanding of space, action and voice through its dynamic format.”
The Grounds We Treadalso presents a series of In-Conversation events, performances and live music bringing together artists, academics and other cultural practitioners to explore the concepts presented in broader programme. Artist Rosalie Schweikerwill be working with local residents in the Gallery’s Project Space.
A new website for Pump House Gallery launches in April 2016.
For further information, images and interview requests please contact Janette Scott Arts PR on or +44(0)7966 486156.
Notes To Editors
The Grounds We Tread, 20 April – 19 June 2016 with JiříKovanda, Lloyd Corporation, IlonaSagar and Cara Tolmie.
Current exhibition: Progress Report from the Strategic Sanctuary for the Destruction of Free Will, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, until 3 April 2016. For their first solo exhibition at Pump House Gallery, Pil and Galia Kollectiv transform the building into a makeshift film set. Making environments that juxtapose the institutional and the psychedelic, they will create a distorted, jagged architecture in which to shoot a film during the Gallery’s closing hours, screening short missives as the exhibition progresses.
Future exhibitions: Samara Scott, 3 August – 25 September. Each fighting its own little battle in happy ignorance, 12 October – 11 December with Lawrence Abu-Hamdan, HarunFarocki and others.
Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park, London SW11 4NJ. Telephone 020 8871 7572. Email: . Opening hours:Wednesday - Sunday11am - 4pm.Closed Monday and Tuesday between exhibitions. Admission free. For more information see
Pump House Gallery is a public contemporary exhibition space housed in a distinctive four story grade ll* listed Victorian tower by the lake in Battersea Park. The pump house tower was built in 1861 to contain a coal-fired steam engine house, water pump and cast iron tank to feed water from the Thames to an artificial rock cascade in the nearby lake and water plants in the Park. After a fire in the 1950’s, which destroyed the windows and the original roof, the building fell into disrepair and eventually became derelict. After renovation the building opened as an interpretation centre in 1988 and following further development became Pump House Gallery in 1999, presenting a year round programme of contemporary visual art.Collaboration and participation is at the heart of its programme.
Pump House Gallery has presented a year round programme of contemporary visual art since 1999 including most recently, Take the leap by Faisal Abdu’Allah and At Home by Hetain Patel in 2014, and The First Humans by Caroline Achaintre, Salvatore Arancio, VidyaGastaldon, Andy Harper, Ben Rivers and Jack Strange in 2015. The gallery is operated by Enable Leisure and Culture on behalf of Wandsworth Council.
Battersea Park is a 200 acre, Grade ll* listed Victorian park formally opened in 1858, one of many intended to improve living conditions for those living in the city. During both wars, the park was utilized by the military to protect London, shelters were dug, allotments were created and a pig farm was set up. After the Second World War in 1951, thirty-seven acres were developed to form the Festival Pleasure Gardens. In 1986 when Wandsworth Council became responsible for the park, there were serious signs of neglect and much needed improvements restored andrecreated the most significant Victorian and Festival features. In 2011 the Winter Garden designed by Dan Pearson was opened.
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About Enable Leisure & Culture
Enable enriches lives and strengthens communities through leisure and culture.
Enable Leisure & Culture is a company limited by guarantee, applying for charitable status and is partner to Wandsworth Council’s commitment to deliver first class leisure and culture services. As a Public Service Mutual, it is a form of social enterprise that manages and delivers the arts, bereavement services, parks, sports facilities, events, the film office, public halls and Putney School of Art and Design across Wandsworth on behalf of Wandsworth Council.
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JiříKovanda images, left to right: Kissing Through Glass, 2007; Vaclavak, 1977; and Eskalator, 1976