“During the final hours of the exhibition “Words fail me”, Adam Gallagher, Curtly Thomas and Ruth Angel Edwards presented a choreographed audio visual performance during which the sculptures present in the space interrogated each other. Playing with and against their own representations, the sculptures will be transformed to take on various roles, shifting to embody a complex range of subjectivities. Finally, returning back to their original forms, they will be removed from the space and burnt in celebration, as effigies.

Incorporating elements of fancy dress, carnival mythologies and ‘creepypasta’ online games that blur the boundaries between reality and fiction, the performance aims to unpack some of the issues brought up by the show. It will use the idea of ‘culture jamming’ to examine exotification, appropriation and exchange as it occurs across music and countercultural histories. The performance seeks to disrupt the institutionalised art space and consider new positive ways to create.”

The sculptures (effigies) function as foils and as prompts to allow for a generative, antagonistic and counteractive mode of exhibition making. A newly produced sound piece by Thomas and Gallagher plays throughout the space, overwhelming the sculptures, testing them and the audience’s identifications and approximations. Together they have worked directly against the archetypes that are the sculptures, subverting them by introducing the culture and ideology of the carnival, playing with how power is performed and recognised.”

All 5 effigies were removed from the gallery and burned in Burgess Park, London, on the evening of the 24th of June 2018.