Exhibitions

Just the Flip Side of the Wall: Post Works at the AF

30 September - 29 October 2011

No Stop Statue Machine, Melissa Appleton, Matthew Butcher and Edwin Burdis, 2011
Courtesy Post Works
Courtesy Post Works

For their inaugural show, Just the Flip Side of the Wall, Melissa Appleton and Matthew Butcher (Post Works) will create a new environment within The Architecture Foundation’s Project Space that will act as a frame for a series of events that explore the relationship between architecture, the city and performance.

The exhibition will be an extension of Post Works’ recent works Stage City (part of The Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition) and No Stop Statue Machine, a film that presents a world where buildings weep, infrastructures conduct people’s thoughts and staircases become machines for endless exercise, recently shown at the ICA, London.

Post Works will reconfigure the AF Project Space with a series of theatrical props and architectural characters including rigging, curtains, lighting and screens, creating a backdrop that will develop and transform through re-configuration and addition throughout the exhibition’s programme of live events and interventions. Key to this exhibition is the idea that architecture can activate events and recompose and reframe content; whether in the city itself or a gallery environment.

An array of artists and creative practitioners will be asked to create a new work, or re-represent an existing one, inspired by the exhibition’s changeable environment. The exhibition will host lectures and talks; curated film screenings and performances. In particular, contributors will be asked to work between the backdrop of Post Works’ installation, the space at the AF, and the environment of the city directly outside the gallery.

Physical remnants of the invited artists interaction with the installation, whether film, audio, text, objects or structures, will then be incorporated into the space allowing the exhibition to evolve and act as a record of activities that have taken place within it. A selection of drawings from No Stop, Statue, Machine will be the first works left in the space after the opening night where the film will be screened.

This new installation follows on from The Architecture Foundation’s recent collaboration with 100% Design fair. Post Works won an invited AF competition to design the central bar at this year’s fair. Elements from the bar will be transported to the AF Project Space in Tooley Street and reconfigured to form a central part of the installation.