“The subject in search of syncope does not want to escape from time,
but from a part of itself that denies it access to intimacy” – Catherine Clément
‘Syncopes’ is a multimedia group exhibition curated by Mimosa House founder Daria Khan and the first exhibition at Mimosa House’s new London gallery space at 47 Theobalds Road in Holborn. ‘Syncopes’ will feature work from Chooc Ly Tan, Himali Singh Soin, Lala Rukh, Mira Calix, Ruth Beraha and Qian Qian.
A syncope is a multi-format ‘tender interval’ which can be described in music as an unstressed ‘empty’ beat which interrupts the expected rhythm; in linguistics as the suspension of a syllable, or a letter; in medicine as a partial or complete loss of consciousness. In this exhibition, syncope acts as a metaphor for rapture, delay, lacunae, and displacement. In the current condition of suspension and global standby, the syncope morphs into a series of new meanings, while reinstating the necessity of a break from growing pressures and acceleration.
The artists in the show will experiment with transcribing and anatomising sound, language and image. By employing algorithms and working through musical scores, the artworks attempt to capture time, measure closeness, and practice resistance, silence and deep listening.
In the sound piece 16 Weeks (2018), award-winning artist and composer Mira Calix employs the technology of ‘sonification’ to trace the ultrasound-recorded movement of a foetus in utero. Sonification – the practice of mapping data to produce sound signals – is used here to translate the random, free movement of the foetus into a sound piece, performed by an orchestra.
Frieze Artist Award 2019 winner and current Writer in Residence at Whitechapel gallery, Himali Singh Soin’s The Particle and the Wave (2015) is a study of the rhythmical pattern of Virginia Woolf’s novel ‘The Waves’, working through the novel by erasing the text and leaving only the semicolons behind as hinges to measure time and proximity.
The recent Goldsmiths MFA Fine Art graduate Qian Qian’s interactive installation People should listen to the birds’ flight (2018), (inspired by ancient Chinese mythological narratives) presents braille codes alongside environmental sounds which are activated by touch. This is paired with a large scale watercolour visualising the movements and entanglements of quantum particles.
A newly commissioned film by DJ, voyager and artist Chooc Ly Tan, features interviews with interdisciplinary practitioners on the subject of ‘syncopation’ in sonic, spatio-temporal, and culinary experiences. The interviews’ narrative is interwoven with Voguing elements, culturally referenced as instrumental in diasporic resistance.
One of South Asia’s leading activists and artists, Lala Rukh’s (d. 2017) series Mirror Images (2011) depicts reverberations of water, condensing the artist’s participation in social uprisings and practice of close listening into the minimal marks on paper. Subh-e-Umeed, 2008, which translates as "Expectation", is a sound piece featuring recordings from the artist’s everyday environments. The recordings closely trace the course of Rukh’s day: the birds were recorded during her early morning walks in the nearby park; in the afternoons after teaching at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Rukh attended protests, during which she recorded the slogans of activists.
A long long time ago in a galaxy far away (2019) by multimedia artist and recent resident of the Italian Academy at Columbia University (NY), Ruth Beraha warps the legendary Star Wars’ soundtrack into a vaguely familiar cacophony, suggesting a scenario for a grim end and declaring the need for change in the established order.
Performances by participating artists Chooc Ly Tan, Himali Singh Soin and Mira Calix will feature.
What lies behind the erasures, the empty beats, omitted words, sonic splits and dissonant melodic patterns? The syncope opens up a potential for transformation, dissent and upheaval, in an attempt to restore our connectedness.
About the artists
Ruth Beraha
Ruth Beraha’s research investigates elements that can commonly be labeled as evil, stranger, or unknown, focusing on the disruption of the certainties we base our experience of the world on. With immersive audios, sculptures, installations, drawings and photographs, her work makes the viewer consider the Adversary no longer as a distant and incomprehensible entity, but as a constitutive part of our identity.
Her most recent shows include: My Blueberry Night II, curated by Antonio Grulli, Piazza del Duomo, Bergamo (2019); Dad Jokes, Ncontemporary gallery, Milan (2019); Non sarai mai solo, solo show curated by Paola Tognon, Museo della Città, Livorno (2019); MONO 2, solo show curated by Gabriele Tosi and Fabio Farnè, LocaleDue, Bologna (2018); Arte in memoria 10, Biennial of Contemporary Art, Ostia Antica archeological site, Rome (2018); That’s it, curated by Lorenzo Balbi, MAMbo, Bologna (2018); Pensiero stupendo (self-portrait), solo show curated by Stefano Coletto, Museo Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice (2018); Take Me (I’m Yours), curated by Christian Boltanski, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Chiara Parisi, Roberta Tenconi, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2017). She is recipient of the 2020 Premio New York and currently artist in residence at ISCP International Studio and Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, New York and Research Affiliate Fellowship at Columbia University, New York.
Chooc Ly Tan
Chooc Ly Tan is a French-born Afro/Vietnamese/Cambodian artist and DJ. Tan’s practice sets out to find systems or tools that navigate comprehension of the world, such as those found in logic or physics, but to re-purpose these in ways that suggest new visions of reality. Drawing on her travels and voyages, she develops inter-disciplinary socio-political performances and installations, working across moving image, DJ sets, radio podcasts and club nights.
Her work has recently been shown at Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China; Kunsthall Oslo, Norway; and PAF Olomouk, Czech Republic. As a DJ, Chooc Ly recently played at Swallow, Los Angeles; Regenerative Feedback at WORM, Rotterdam; Queering Now, London; Chale Wote Festival, Accra, Ghana; the Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland, and Black Obsidian Sound System: Club Night at Somerset House studios, London. She also runs the platform Décalé with long-time collaborator and cultural producer Anne Duffau. Décalé are evenings of experimental, collapsing and flawless sounds/visuals.
Mira Calix
Mira Calix is an award-winning artist and composer based in the United Kingdom. Music and sound, which she considers a sculptural material, are at the centre of her practice. Her work explores the manipulation of the material into visible, physical forms through multi-disciplinary installations, sculpture, video and performance works. Calix’s practice is deliberately disjunctive, allowing research, site, and subject to influence a fluid choice of materials and mediums.
Calix has been commissioned by and exhibited and performed works in many leading cultural institutions, festivals a internationally, most recently at Bozar, Brussels, National Arts Festival, Historic Royal Palaces for The Tower of London, Somerset House, Carriageworks, MONA, Performa, the Barbican, Art Basel, Manchester International festival and the London Olympics among others.
Qian Qian
Embracing mankind in a phenomenological sense, Qian Qian’s work awakens the (human) spirits through constructed situations and empathized material. Relations are automatically generated where there are humans and as a type of psychological acknowledgement, spiritual being can be created therefrom. The assembled space, cosmopolitan, cities, local library, exhibition space or the Internet, provides a context where relations can be guided and reformed. Her medium varies from social practice, interactive installation to painting.
Qian Qian works and lives in London. Her recent projects include: a solo show ‘Embryos’ in West Norwood Library Project Space (London); Goldsmiths MFA degree show (London); ‘Inspiration Momento’ in Leyden Gallery (London); ‘...And To Dust All Return’ in Unna Way, (Huddersfield); ‘Almostartproject’, Beijing.
Himali Singh Soin
Himali Singh Soin is a writer and artist based between London and Delhi. She uses metaphors from outer space and the natural environment to construct imaginary cosmologies of interferences, entanglements, deep voids, debris, delays, alienation, distance and intimacy. In doing this, she thinks through ecological loss and the loss of home, seeking shelter somewhere in the radicality of love. Her speculations are performed in audio-visual, immersive environments.
Lala Rukh
Lala Rukh (b.1948, Lahore; d. 2017) studied art at Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan (MFA) and University of Chicago, USA (MFA). She taught for 30 years at Punjab University, Department of Fine Art and the National College of Arts where she set up the MA(Hons) Visual Art Program in the year 2000. After retiring from teaching, Lala Rukh devoted her time in her studio in Lahore and to activism. She was amongst the foremost feminist activist artists of South Asia.
Her recent shows include ‘Line, beats and shadows’ at Kiran Nadar Museum Art, India; ‘Luogo e Segni’ at Punta della Dogana, Italy; ‘Artist’s Rooms: Lala Rukh’ at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE; ‘Peindre La Nuit’ at Centre Pompidou – Metz, France; Documenta 14, Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany; ‘For an Image, Faster Than Light’ curated by Bose Krishnamachari for Yinchuan Biennial, Yinchuan, China; ‘The past, the present, the possible’ curated by Eungie Joo for Sharjah Biennial 12, Sharjah, UAE.
With generous support from Arts Council England, Fluxus Art Projects and Hallett Independent.
