This first iteration of a series, inspired by the notion of serendipity and conditioned by the global context, was hosted by the artist Amalia Pica from her living room in the spring of 2021f. The artist, whose work often explores the way we live our lives, took us on a tour of her home through different objects, before engaging in a dialogue with her special guests, Jennifer Higgie and Volker Sommer, whom she invited to share the stories behind some of the objects that surrounded them, in a kind of shared journey.
Born in Neuquén, Argentina, Amalia Pica is an Argentine-British artist based in London. Her practice explores metaphor, communication and citizen participation through sculptures, installations, live performances and drawings.
Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer based in London. Editor of frieze magazine, she is the author and illustrator of the children’s book There’s Not One; editor of The Artist’s Joke and author of the novel Bedlam. Her new book on women’s self-portraiture, The Mirror & The Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resistance: 500 Years of Women’s Self-Portraits, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. She is currently working on a book about women artists and the spiritual world.
Volker Sommer is a German author and professor of evolutionary anthropology at University College London. His long-term field research on monkeys and apes in Asia and Africa focuses on the evolution of social and sexual behaviour, biodiversity conservation and animal rights. Sommer is on the scientific board of the Giordano-Bruno Foundation, a German-based think tank promoting secularism and evolutionary humanism.
Conceived as an intersectional laboratory, [LIVING ROOM] is an online meeting place where we are invited to listen, observe, share and enjoy a sensory experience through images, poetry, sound, cooking and dance. Each of these virtual encounters will be hosted by a guest artist from their own living room, thus inscribing the private home space into the digital sphere, involving different but deeply interconnected realities.
POSTED: @tropicalpapers_12.06. 2021