I Will Eat This Sleepy Town Marcin Dudek and Ben Washington What we call ‘progress’ doesn’t necessarily take the direction we expect. Sometimes, in an attempt to ‘modernize’, the march of society pulls the rug from beneath our feet. In their two-man exhibition, Marcin Dudek and Ben Washington create parallel large-scale installations. Both artists pick up on the need to ‘push forward’, the need to dig or climb, but also the dangers of being swallowed up or lost in the clouds. Marcin Dudek’s work takes as its inspiration the town of Katowice in Polish Silesia – in the 1970s, a model industrial city, with high-rise architecture springing up from the work of the coalmines underneath. Excessive exploitation (or over-mining) undermined this success story, and the ground has opened up, slowly swallowing the city. Using little more than cellophane and tape, Dudek’s tunnel installation leads us into the hollows of the earth, with traps of light, sound and video. Ben Washington’s sculptures – precarious, unbalanced objects – emerge from the sink-holes and the rubble. Suspended underneath, Washington’s works bring attention to the structures and systems that keep our environments and landscapes in the orientation we have become accustomed to: the right way up. The sculptures are at once architectural models, abstract mountainscapes, floating cities and stellar systems, and bring together the Monolith, video games, and holiday snaps from Costa del Sol. This underground utopia - a cross between the nuclear shelter and the hanging gardens - allows us to inhabit the man-made and the natural at the same time. From here, in the safety of the infra-thin, we can touch the spaces not just in the physical, but also in the emotional and psycho-geographic. 13 January – 20 February 2011 Private view: Wednesday 12 January, 6.30-9.30pm * * * * * Opening performance by Siegfried Zaworka The private view will be accompanied by a performance by Austrian artist and musician Siegfried Zaworka. Known for creating unique music by attempting to play several instruments at once (drums, organ and horns), and without resorting to any pre-programmed sounds, the artist will create a tension-filled reading of the environment in the gallery. Wednesday 12 January, 6.30-9.30pm * * * * * For full press release text, images and artist profiles, please see the attached document. For more information and image requests, please contact the Yulia Fedorenko, Press and Communication Officer, at yulia@watersideprojectspace.org or on 02071935440. * * * * * Waterside Project Space Unit 8, Waterside 44-48 Wharf Rd London N1 7UX (map and directions) Wednesdays - Saturdays: 11am-6pm Sundays: 11am-4pm First Thursdays: 11am-9pm watersideprojectspace.org wps@watersideprojectspace.org 02071935440 * * * * * join us on Facebook follow us on Twitter Waterside Project Space is supported by the Natonal Lottery through Arts Council Englald, and the exhibition by the Polish Cultural Insitute, Austrian Cultural Forum, and Tesa Tapes. We would like to thank the artists, Peter Meikl, Anna Tryc-Bromley, Agnieszka Marszewska, Karolina Kołodziej, Paulina Latham, Jeremy Smith. Mariza Tschali. We gratefully acknowledge the support of Mr James Ellery and Wonder. Go to watersideprojectspace.org if you have trouble reading this email. If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, please let us know here.