Thursday, September 04, 2014

Sophie Lisa Beresford: "Dreamworld" NewBridge Project Space, Newcastle (curated by Cecilia Stenbom)

Dreamworld

Helen Carmel Benigson
Sophie Lisa Beresford
Jenni Hiltunen
Ninja Thyberg

Saturday 6 September - Saturday 11 October

Preview: Friday 5 September 6-9pm
(live performance by Sophie Lisa Beresford at 8pm)

NewBridge Project Space

6 Newbridge St West, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8AW

Opening Times:  Tuesday - Saturday, 12pm-6pm

http://thenewbridgeproject.com/

 

The NewBridge Project presents Dreamworld, a provocative group exhibition that will explore the use of sex as a motivator for consumerist desire.

The exhibition features performance and moving image work by international and UK based artists who present a confrontational, poignant and witty take on sex and body image. Dreamworld offers an antidote against the overflow of highly-sexualised commercial messages in Newcastle's city centre.

The show includes internationally acclaimed moving image works by Ninja Thyberg, Jenni Hiltunen and Helen Carmel Benigson. Also on Friday 5 September at 8pm, North East based artist Sophie Lisa Beresford will premiere a new performance, All I Want Is You at the preview event. A spiritual, shamanic rite to north-east style Mákina (a sub genre of hardcore techno, originating in Spain). The music will act as a shamanic tool, to focus and expand energy, leading to an intense knowing of the purity of human experience, in this case sexuality.

Ninja Thyberg presents Pleasure, a short film shot in the green room of a porn film telling the story of Marie who agrees to perform a double anal sex scene so she does not lose her job.

Jenni Hiltunen's Grind is a playful take on 'Dancehall Queen Style', a Jamaican dance fashion which became popular in the 1990s and more recently through 'twerking'. Grind uses provocative costumes, suggestive poses, roles and blatant sexuality.

Helen Carmel Benigson allows us to traverse across Los Angeles in Plastic City, Plasticity, exploring dystopian and utopian relationships between fantasy city and the plasticity of the the perfect body.

From the moment you leave the house, log on to the web or open a magazine, you are bombarded with airbrushed images of men and women posing languidly or suggestively draped over rocks. Dreamworld will examine issues surrounding image, gender politics and sexual orientation. We are all exposed to contradictory notions of 'appropriateness', what is sexy and what is seedy.

Audiences are presented with a choice; come in and see the show or surmise it's totally unsuitable and stay away.

Dreamworld is kindly supported by Arts Council England and was developed with NewBridge Programme Committee Member, Cecilia Stenbom.