Postscript: Serena Korda: The Jug Choir: Ectoplasmic Variations

Thursday 10 March, 7.30 – 8.30pm
Bar open 6.30 – 9.00pm (cash only)
Gallery 3 / free

Presented by artist Serena Korda, The Jug Choir: Ectoplasmic Variations is a group performance in which members of the public sing into Korda’s own hand-made ceramic artworks.

With ceramic vessels bearing the faces of bearded men, Korda references the Bellarmine jugs of the sixteenth century that were used as common household objects. During the witch hunts of the seventeenth century, these jugs were transformed into ‘Witch Bottes’, a form of sympathetic magic used to ward off evil. A kind of voodoo ensued as the body of the male vessel was filled with urine, bent nails and votive cloth hearts, hoping to cause pain to any ‘witch’ that posed a threat. 

Korda uses the ‘Witch Bottles’ as a vehicle to explore notions of gender and hysteria through the lens of war. She invites you to listen as The Jug Choir activates the vessels as a way to explore the materiality of object and sound and consider how ritual is embedded in acts of violence.

There is a limited capacity so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. 

Serena Korda lives and works in London. She studied at Middlesex University and completed her MA in Printmaking at Royal College of Art in 2009. Recent solo exhibition include The Hosts: Ectoplasmic Variations (2015) and Aping the Beast at Camden Arts Centre, London and The Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (2013). Her films and performances have been shown in various exhibitions including: Laid to Rest, Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life, Wellcome Collection, London (2011); Spaces for the Imagination,Turner Contemporary, Margate (2011); and The Library of Secrets, New Art Gallery Walsall; Whitstable Biennale (2008/2009). In 2012 she had a residency at Camden Arts Centre for which she produced a performance: Decosa,Tradition Stockholm, Keifer pin. In 2012 she created W.A.M.A The Work as Movement Archive, a public artwork for Barton Hill Bristol. A new exhibition of Korda’s work will be part of Glasgow International (2016).

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