The exhibition features young artists from London, New York, Chicago, and Athens, addressing notions of the digital, spectacle, gaze, voyeurism, death, surveillance, desensitisation, and the fetish of violence within the mutually inclusive quotidian and political spheres.
Watch&See is a group exhibition centred around the works of four young artists spread across NYC, Chicago, and London. The exhibition explores themes of digitisation, voyeurism, desensitisation, and the fetishisation of violence across the mutually inclusive mundane and political spheres. The title Watch&See underscores the duality of surveillance and the roles we inhabit as both viewer and viewed. “Watch” suggests the passive, anticipatory act of looking, while “See” points toward an active perception and deeper understanding. Together, they invite audiences to confront the ways our visual experiences with technology intersect with broader social challenges. Raised alongside the birth of the digital era, we have witnessed how ease of access and constant overexposure to both violence and pleasure have created a vacuum in our society around the relationship between action and consequence. Watch&See seeks to confront this vacuum of desensitisation by presenting artists whose works address the globalisation, militarisation, and cultural taboos that shape our living history.
About Thandiwe:
Thandiwe Nzingha Knox is a first-year PhD student in the History of Art Department at Yale University whose research focuses on ancient art from, and surrounding, the Greek world. Her research examines depictions of identity, ethnic difference, and racialization across a range of artistic media. She also maintains academic and curatorial interests in Reception Studies and the reimagining of Classical Antiquity within modern Black political and artistic praxis. Outside of academia, her interests include independent curation with emerging contemporary artists who explore themes of connectivity and surveillance.
About Naa Atswei Laryea:
Naa Atswei Laryea is a Gã and Yorùbá researcher, cultural worker, and curator raised in Washington, D.C., among which she splits her time in New York City and Accra. She is currently a Research Associate at the Africa-America Institute, where she oversees art and archival projects and supports program and institutional development. Atswei’s interests lie in both historical and hyper-contemporary explorations, with projects ranging from archival research on an Osu “prince” who emerged as a subject of a Klimt painting to mediations on the Clermont Twins as body artists re-shaping the human. Atswei was a Barbara Silver Horowitz ‘55 Scholar of Distinction at Barnard College of Columbia University, where she received Departmental Honors in Africana Studies and research awards from the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University and the African Studies Association. She has published with the Princeton Undergraduate Journal of Gender and Sexuality, consulted for the Museum of Modern Art, and interned at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art. During her free time, you can find Atswei on a long walk, planning travel, listening to Amapiano on too high of a volume, or some combination of the three.
Contact: If you have any questions regarding this exhibition, please email programming@stmargaretshouse.org.uk
Venue: The Chapel at St Margaret’s House, 21 Old Ford Road — E2 9PL
Access: We are working to make our Grade II listed building more accessible, but it will take some time. Please note that entry to the Chapel is not step-free. If you require access support (including our portable ramps) and/or access to an accessible toilet, please contact us on 020 8980 2092 or email programming@stmargaretshouse.org.uk so we can arrange this for you.
Closing Event: Thursday 6th August, 6.30-8.30pm
Exhibition: Thursday 6th August, 10am-5pm
Tickets for the Opening Event are free, but registration is essential