Performance: Fani Parali // AONYX and DREPAN

FANI PARALI // AONYX and DREPAN & THE MINDERS OF THE WARM

Performance: AONYX and DREPAN  // 10 October – 15 November 2020 // Dilston Gallery // Saturdays, 12 noon - 5pm (changing to 4pm on 31 October) with performances also available on the final day of the exhibition.

AONYX and DREPAN is a 20 minute performance taking place every Saturday throughout the exhibition at our Dilston Gallery on an hourly basis between 12-5pm.

Performance admission is strictly limited to 10 people at a time.

Slots will be available to book up to 30 minutes before performance start times online via Eventbrite or in person at our Lake Gallery reception.

Please be prompt, late entry will not be permitted.

Children are welcome but are to be supervised at all times, likewise dogs who must also remain on leads whilst on site.

Facemasks are mandatory when onsite at either of our gallery buildings. Unless you are medically exempt from wearing a nose and mouth covering you will be required to wear one, scarves will not be accepted.

If you have forgotten your facemask, masks will be available at the gallery a donation basis (£1). If you use a mask provided by the gallery, please dispose of it safely in the bin provided upon exit.

If you book a ticket for the last performance of the day please be aware that THE MINDERS OF THE WARM exhibition at Lake Gallery will no longer be open when you come out of the performance, so to ensure you experience the full show we recommend that you allow time to visit Lake Gallery first.

Exhibition: THE MINDERS OF THE WARM // 10 October – 15 November 2020 // Lake Gallery // Thursday - Sunday, 11am - 5pm (changing to 4pm on 25 October).

No booking is required but we are operating a reduced capacity and promote social distancing.

Keeping You and our Team Safe: Keeping everyone safe during this time is our top priority; therefore we have the following precautions in place for the benefit of our visitors and staff:

• The wearing of nose and mouth coverings is mandatory in both buildings unless you are medically exempt.
• Hand sanitiser will be available upon arrival, please make use of this facility
• Our toilets in Lake Gallery will not be open to the public, please use the park toilets adjacent to Lake Gallery.
• Those attending booked performances will be able to use the accessible toilet facility at Dilston Gallery only.
• We have a track and trace system in place in each building, please make use of this so we can keep you informed of any eventualities.
• Both venues will have non-negotiable capacity limits to allow for safe social distancing.
• Please keep your distance to a minimum of 2m from other visitors and staff.

We're delighted to announce we will be returning this autumn with AONYX and DREPAN & THE MINDERS OF THE WARM, Fani Parali’s largest solo show to date.

AONYX and DREPAN & THE MINDERS OF THE WARM sees Parali reach bold new heights in her extraordinary production methods, testing the limits of scale and liveness.

Populating Lake Gallery, THE MINDERS OF THE WARM presents for the very first time the full breadth of Parali’s artistic practice. Threads of mythology and the underworld underpin the selected works previously unseen, including paintings, drawings, video and sculpture.

The exhibition asserts the artist’s fascination in the sheer vastness of this world, and despite this, her faith in a connective tissue between all beings, through Deep Time*.

The Minders are life forms represented within; guarding and waiting, gently nudging us to look deeper, encouraging empathy, awareness, hope and support. Their movements and rhythms inspire both the sculptural form and primal song we encounter in Parali’s monumental performance installation AONYX and DREPAN at Dilston Gallery. This vast new work was developed in direct response to the soaring scale of this raw, deconsecrated space.

The gallery is transformed into an otherworld; a host site, a portal, in which her creatures inhabit, transmit, flex and sing. Here, spectral bodies become mediated vessels, lip-synching pre-recorded emissions; tethered voices demanding to be heard.

Parali’s collaborative live practice is focused on the formulation of identity beyond the body’s limited presence; creating theatrical encounters in which sound and form are choreographed to create immersive and intimate scenes of habitation, directed movement and ethereal soundscapes.

These creature-characters have evolved throughout Parali’s recent work, their ghostly limbs are extended and morphed by life-cast costumes, which restrict and accentuate the performers’ movements and spatial presence. Our interaction with these hybrid creatures unfolds as their song resonates; their identities tessellating and shifting for the duration as part-human, part-spirit, part-building, part-animal.

*‘Deep time’ refers to the time scale of geologic events, which is vastly, almost unimaginably greater than the time scale of human lives and human plans. It was developed as a modern scientific concept by 18th century Scottish geologist James Hutton. (Alden, 2018)

Fani Parali (b. 1983, Greece, lives and works in London) studied BA Sculpture at Camberwell College of Arts and completed her postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy Schools in 2017. Parali’s practice includes sound, performance, sculpture, large-scale painting, installation and moving image.

Selected solo and group exhibitions include: The Terrace of Lungs, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2019, Drawing Biennale 2019, Drawing Room, London, Hyper Mesh, Assembly Point, London, 2019, Arc. Herrick Gallery, London, 2018, The Creatures, Chalton Gallery, London, 2018, Chumming, The Pipe Factory (part of GI Festival), Glasgow, 2018, Bearing Liability, Strange Cargo Gallery, Folkestone, 2017, RA Schools Show 2017, Royal Academy Schools, London, Gender, Identity and Material, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2017, MONO7, Courtyard Theatre, London, 2017, Oral Rinse 2, Waterloo Action Centre, London, 2016, Dark Water, Southwark Park Galleries, London, 2016, A COOL DRINK TO CHEEK, Plazaplaza, London, 2014. Parali was one of the recipients of the Studiomakers Prize, by Outset and Tiffany and Co, 2017.

AONYX and DREPAN & THE MINDERS OF THE WARM has been made possible with thanks to the generous support of Ada's Circle, The Paul & Louise Cooke Endowment, Arts Council England, The Henry Moore Foundation and Southwark Council.

Fani Parali is supported by Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant.

Image credit: Fani Parali Short-clawed, Long-clawed, 2020.