Event overview
Please join us for the last event hosted at The Change Room in its current residence in Deptford, in the male changing rooms.
Evangelia Dimitrakopou is the last artist to showcase works at our current venue. Join us Friday 23 August, 7-9pm (one day only event), where you can experience her participatory installation, 'To Host', exclusively created for The Change Room.
How do we deal with organisms and strangers? Are we the hosts or are we being hosted? Based on the word Hostis and its ambiguity (in Latin means both “enemy” and “friend”), the artist is proposing an installation revolving around the idea of the Other and the total acceptance of Him. This Other can vary from the Stranger, Nature or an existence which is different in totality.
To host is to receive guests, host is the carrier of another organism, the host is part of the ritual of the holy communion. In the holy communion or Eucharistic there is a fusion with “God”, with the Other, a sort of transcendental sex which leads to ecstasy, such as the one of Teresa of Avila. The Other is the subject of amorous discourse. “I” become myself by swallowing the Other. It is the beaten body of the deity, an act of oral gratification, a complete welcome of the Other even in the smallest cavities of the flesh. I identify with the Other through the orality of it, and I have no idea how this Other came to being. This incoming ecstasy from the encounter of this Stranger is a matter of the positive and the negative, of jouissance and extreme pain, always the two together or alternating. Through consumption, the Other is inhabiting the whole body, touching, feeling the outside and the inside. Liquid is the signifier of the link between the soul and the divine, between the receiver and the Other, liquid links as a thread moving from the mouth, to the oesophagus, stomach and bowels. Through the consumption of the Eucharist, I become a garden, a fertile soil for the Other to settle. Liquid represents the space and time of body to body contact, the co-presence and co-penetration which makes being a living being. The other becomes a nutrient element that nourishes, intoxicates, that touches the subject and that the subject touches as well. The new self loves the Other, this self absorbs the Other who in turn absorbs the self.
For non-MFA Goldsmiths students, you need a card to access the building. Contact us on 07967309048 to be let in.
The Change Room runs monthly events of newly commissioned or existing bodies of work that engage with climate change concerns, are in dialogue with other species, and engage with environmental questions. Project run by Oana Damir.
The Change Room has presented new works by thirteen contemporary artists for the past eight months of programming. We would like to thank everyone that gave us their time, supported us, and to everyone that attended each event.
Thank you to Goldsmiths' College, University of London, for the support.
Please join us for a small closing party after the event, from 9.30pm at The Royal Albert (SE14 6TJ), 5 minutes walk from The Change Room. https://www.vagabond-projects.com/
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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23 Aug 2019 | 7:00pm - 9:00pm |
Accessibility
If you are attending an event and need the College to help with any mobility requirements you may have, please contact the event organiser in advance to ensure we can accommodate your needs.