Against Doom Too: Macon Reed, Mia Taylor

Macon Reed, Mia Taylor
Against Doom Too
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Opening: 6-9pm,Thursday 17 October 2019
Gallery open Friday - Sunday 18-20 October 1-6pm
Saturday - Sunday 26-27 October 1-6pm

Against Doom Too is a collaboration between
Macon Reed (USA) and Mia Taylor (UK).

Against Doom Too was created as an extension of artist Macon Reed (US) and Mia Taylor’s (UK) friendship and shared dialogue on the interrelated histories and present-day political and ecological shifts between their two countries. The project will be the culmination of a series of conversations and propositions between Reed and Taylor, considering scenarios from the present and potential future human civilizations - both utopic and dystopic in nature. Against Doom Too incorporates a range of media, including painting and video, to connect and expand upon what changes may be available to us when activated through collective imagination.

Reed’s practice is an attempt to push back against prevailing cultural trends of harm and despondency - creating sculptural environments which expand our capacity for collective re-envisioning, story-telling, conversation, and catharsis. Taylor’s recent work combines narrative and field-based writing, drawing on scientific research (from astronautics, oceanography, geology) to interweave factual data with experience and fiction, as a means to explore concepts of geographical, temporal and emotional distance. Both artists understand the imagination as an emotive, theoretical, and corporeal realm of transformation that needs our protection.

Reed’s recent work has connected the historic enclosures of the “commons” that pushed people into early capitalism and the idea of the collective imagination as today’s version of a threatened commons. Taylor’s work explores the communication of trans-disciplinary narratives and how the slipperiness of language can be used to examine current climates of uncertainty and disorientation, particularly in relation to environmental change. Bringing these two artist’s dynamic practices into direct conversation, Against Doom Too advocates for the unlimited potential of the collective imaginary and poetic potential for re-thinking how we respond and adapt to the huge challenges facing human beings.

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