As part of the 2023 Gasworks International Residency Programme, Mercedes Zobel, in partnership with Outset, supported a 3-month residency for Filipino artist Lesley-Anne Cao, hosted at the Outset Residency Studio.
RESIDENCY: 9th January – 27th March 2023
Lesley-Anne Cao:
Lesley-Anne Cao’s practice explores the interplay of materiality, fiction and exhibition-making. Cao works with personal and collective archives, often together with collaborators in music, literature, science, crafts and digital technologies, as well as non-human actors, to explore the possibility of alternative narratives departing from the familiar. In her recent work, Cao reimagines the book as a malleable object, a site of contradictory notions of care, engagement and sustainability.
During her residency at Gasworks, Cao explored the history of bookmaking practices in London, while looking into the geopoetics of printed matter in relation to the specific environment of the city. Engaging with books as both medium and metaphor, Cao explored ways of subverting threats of deterioration and loss by using materials that embrace — or suggest the potential to endure — adverse environmental conditions.
Gasworks:
Established in 1994, Gasworks is a non-profit contemporary visual art organisation working at the intersection between UK and international practices and debates. They provide studios for London-based artists; commission emerging UK-based and international artists to present their first major exhibitions in the UK; and develop a highly-respected international residencies programme, which offers rare opportunities for international artists to research and develop new work in London. All programmes are accompanied by events and participatory workshops that engage public audiences.
In 2014 Gasworks successfully completed a £2.1 million capital campaign project by purchasing and refurbishing its building. The organisation thus secured a permanent home and a substantial asset, a huge achievement that gives the organization unprecedented resilience and allows it to continue to nurture future generations of UK and international artists, develop new audiences and offer participation opportunities for local families. Gasworks’ redeveloped building opened to the public on 24 September 2015. Outset supported this capital campaign, resulting in the Outset Residency Studio.
The International Residency Programme was established in 1994 to support the development of emerging non-UK-based artists offering them a 3-month residency in London and the opportunity to research and make new work inspired by the local artistic community and in a supportive environment.
Each year Gasworks provides 16 international artists with a studio in a building that houses a total of 11 studios (7 rented to London-based artists and 4 reserved for the Residency Programme), a gallery and an education space for talks, workshops and other public events.
Residencies are generally non-prescriptive and process-based. They encourage artists to use their time in London to benefit from the resources that the city offers, from public libraries and archives to other arts institutions. At the same time, visiting artists work within a small community of artists and Gasworks provides opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with peers, arts professionals and the wider artistic community.
While the Residency Programme aims to facilitate research and the production of new work, it also includes a diverse range of talks, presentations, performances and open studios that help disseminate the work of visiting artists to the public. Residency artists are encouraged to participate in an events programme that aims to disseminate and further contextualise their practice, encouraging dialogue with the public. Events may include talks, seminars, screenings, workshops and performances.
Open Studios weekend sessions are held quarterly, offering audiences the opportunity to visit the studios and hear about the research and work-in-progress the artists have been developing.
Over the years Gasworks has developed a number of multi-year partnerships with prestigious international institutional and private funders. These include ARKO (Arts Council of Korea), Creative India, IASPIS (Sweden), Goethe Institute (Germany), Gulbenkian Foundation (Portugal), BECA AMA (Chile), Charles Wallace (India & Pakistan), British Council (India and Pakistan) and AC/E (Spain).
Some of the Gasworks alumni include: Mica Cabildo, Cian Dayrit, Subodh Ghupta (India), Song Dong (China); Tania Bruguera (Cuba); Andrew Esiebo (Nigeria); Renata Lucas (Brazil); Gabriel Sierra (Colombia), Ibrahim Mahama(Ghana) and many others.
