LONDON.- The Other Art Fair, returns to London’s Old Truman Brewery this weekend showcasing 150 independent artists alongside a vibrant programme of guest features. Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, the fair continues its mission to re-frame art, and how it is experienced; offering an art fair experience that is evocative, inclusive, and inspiring. To mark the month’s International Women’s Day celebrations, this edition of the leading artist-led fair is focussed on championing women in art and alternative practices sometimes excluded from the art world such as textiles and floristry. The line-up features a 62% Female to 38% Male ratio of exhibitors with 50% of artists being new to the fair, 71 London based artists and 10% BIPOC creators.
Fair Director Anouka Pedley on the desire to champion female identifying talent and non-traditional art forms: “To commemorate International Women’s Day, we wanted to celebrate our female identifying exhibitors alongside a features programme highlighting art forms that are not commonly considered ‘fine art’ because they are typically aligned with women and the domestic. While textiles are becoming increasingly popular, there is still so much undiscovered talent, especially in London. We want to celebrate this art form by curating an exhibition of textile art and hosting a dedicated workshop series across the four days of the fair, encouraging our audience to discover and interact with the varied strands involved in the practice.”
Chila Kumari Singh Burman will feature as the fair’s special guest artist and has created an exceptional, hand embellished print exclusively for the fair for just £250. Fresh from recent shows at Tate Britain, Covent Garden, Grundy Gallery, Liverpool Town Hall and the takeover of Tate Modern's Tate Edit shop, Burman will be showcasing her beautiful works that examine the experience of South Asian Women and her Punjabi heritage. Renowned for her radical feminist practice examining representation, gender and cultural identity. Burman works across a vast range of mediums, including printmaking, drawing, painting, installation and film. She utilises kaleidoscopic colour, glitter and striking imagery to continually challenge and dismantle stereotypes. Her work to emancipate the image of women, has resulted in the creation of influential works infused with messages of female empowerment.
Chila comments, “I have been continually flying the flag for South Asian artists, investigating representation, gender and cultural identity through my work. My recent installations have really resonated with us all, at a time of radical change post-pandemic. I’ve served as a trustee on the board of Rich Mix in Bethnal Green for over a decade and have created artworks still on display at the Kobi Nazrul Centre on Brick Lane so my connection to the area surrounding the Truman Brewery is a strong one too. I’m looking forward to returning to the area and displaying a selection of my works for The Other Art Fair.”
Bloomberg New Contemporaries alumni Nisa Khan will exhibit her interactive art vending machines. For the low fee of £2, the machine distributes a small artwork of a brown woman’s body to draw attention to the role of money in a gallery space and illuminate the commodification of brown women’s bodies. In her own words, “the journey to decolonise the brown body continues...”.
An immersive installation by New York Collective Secret Project Robot will also feature. The group’s mind-blowing audio/visual immersive works and revolutionary philosophy of offering an antidote to the proscribed notion of “the gallery” and “the institution” make Secret Robert Project and The Other Art Fair perfect bedfellows.
Meanwhile, queer artist The Line Girl will create a site-specific, engulfing entrance installation, pushing the potentials of drawing a line to absolute limits. Let’s Talk about textiles is specially created exhibition within the fair that will include works by Daisy Tortuga, Shelby Hurst Inglefield, MH Sarkis and Llinos Owen.
Matt Jukes’s feelscapes will be presented in collaboration with mental health charity calm (campaign against living miserably). For this highly unusual installation, a specially created AI captures visitors' emotions and reactions as they think about their future and creates a personalised emotional colour landscape for them to keep forever. Fair goers visiting the booth will be able to download their personal landscape in the form of a wallpaper on their phone for free or buy a print in a variety of sizes. Proceeds from these sales will be donated to CALM and contribute to funding potentially life-saving services.
The fair has teamed up with NFT marketplace Rarible and blockchain Tezos to give visitors the opportunity to buy their first NFT from selected fair exhibitors including Sara Lim, Nana SRT, Karen Turner, Celine Ali and Lexi Laine. Meet the artist in person, speak to the team at Rarible in person and buy your first NFT in person, with prices ranging from just £200-£500. Tezos uses a Proof of Stake algorithm to mint NFTs which is far more energy-efficient than other forms.
A group of participating fair artists will be donating the proceeds from the sale of their artwork to Choose Love to support the vital work they are doing with refugees.
