Lines of Dissent: Orleans House Gallery
Lines of Dissent, the latest exhibition at Orleans House Gallery, looks at colonisation, love, resilience, migration, trade and architecture in the borough
The idea this new exhibition, Lines of Dissent, came to multi-disciplinary artist, Dzifa Benson, when she realised how little work there was by female artists in the Richmond Borough Art Collection. Using this as a starting point, Dzifa, who is a performance maker, producer and writer, reveals untold stories and overlooked people hidden in the archive.
Dzifa, in collaboration with Beatrice McDermott, leader of the Programming Team at Orleans House Gallery, presents pieces from the collection as a strand of Richmond DNA. Much like the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? Dzifa invites contemporary artists from the worlds of poetry, theatre and music to investigate this group of artworks in order to expose their invisible inheritances and legacies. As Dzifa’s interrogation of the collection unfolds, the exhibition also uncovers encounters of all kinds including colonisation, love, resilience, migration, trade and architecture.
We want the Richmond Borough Art Collection to reflect the lives of people living in Richmond today, mapping out a shared sense of identity and place. Addressing who and what have been excluded from the collection exposes past injustices and present inequalities thereby ensuring that its future is more inclusive.
Nodding towards the number of chromosomes inherited by each of our parents, the show responds to 23 items from the Richmond Borough Art Collection. It begins its journey with work presented alongside poems and provocations by Dzifa. These set the stage for even more contemporary responses to come throughout the duration of the show.
Other artists involved in the project in future include Pascale Petit, Isabella Waldron, Tavaziva Dance and Dimitri Scarlato.
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