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Bursary Showcase: James Jordan Johnson

A durational live performance

Image courtesy of the artist

Artsadmin Bursary artist James Jordan Johnson shares their work at Toynbee Studios.

“Something is Trying to Disappear Me is a durational live performance attempting to unearth, preserve and understand the most capacious vestiges of my interior in relation to material, cultural and familial loss. It is a work in which I think through my childhood recollection of the domestic space through gatherings, phantasmic events, the yard as an archive, and materials that are no longer alive, rotting, withering, or exist but are dissimilar to their former encounter. The performance is a rumination and an inquiry into the slippages, fictitious and illegible spaces of memory that we preserve inside of our interior.”

Artsadmin’s Artists’ Bursary Scheme has been running since 1998 and has supported over 200 artists working in contemporary performance practices. This year 5 artists, Elsabet Yonas, Hetal Chudasama, James Jordan Johnson, Krishna Istha, and Tammy Reynolds have developed their work and practice with the support of the Artist Support team since April 2020. This daytime event offers a glimpse into the practice of two of these artists, Hetal Chudasama and James Jordan Johnson.

The current Artists’ Bursary Scheme is made possible with support from Arts Council England, Live Art UK Diverse Actions programme and generous individual donations to Artsadmin.

James Jordan Johnson (b.1997, London) is an artist working in performance and sculpture currently undertaking Open School East’s Associate Programme. He explores how embodied memory is recalled, devised, fictive, and a non-legible phenomenon. Approaching said subject matters from afro-diasporic climates of material and performative histories, he uses methods of walking, found and chosen objects, play, public interventions, and mundanity. 

We’ve been working hard to make Toynbee Studios as safe as possible for artists, audiences, hirers, café customers, tenants and staff. Read the safety measures we have in place. 
Our safety measures remain unchanged since 19 July and we are committed to an inclusive reopening.

“It’s been so inspiring working alongside these five artists over the last year. I’ve learned so much from their capacity to adapt, imagine and rest in unimaginable challenges of a pandemic. I see in all five of the Bursary artists an energy to take on an uncertain future and map a new landscape of artistry that leads from curiosity, criticality and hope.”

– Michael Norton

  • BSL on request.
  • Toynbee Studios is wheelchair accessible and there are wheelchair accessible toilets. Read more about Accessibility at Toynbee Studios.
  • The event takes places in the theatre. There is a wheelchair lift to access the stage, if required.
  • All toilets at Toynbee Studios are gender neutral in line with our Safer Spaces policy.
  • Please email access@artsadmin.co.uk if you have any further access requests.

Date and time

29 September 2021
11am-1pm or 2-4pm
Two-hour durational work. Audiences can come and go.

Please note
This is now a past event.

Venue

Toynbee Studios
28 Commercial Street
London, E1 6AB
Tel: 020 7247 5102
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