Testament

“Testament” is a large-scale group exhibition investigating the role of monuments in response to this tumultuous period as the UK navigates through seismic changes triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, environmental crises and Brexit.

The exhibition features ‘proposal’ artworks by 47 artists, including those who are either resident in the UK, and those who are abroad but hold an understanding of the UK’s complex relationship with the past and present. Their contributions unambiguously or indirectly address the idea of a monument, or allude to the treatment of monuments in the UK in 2022, and seek to magnify a multitude of conversations, from discussions about decolonising institutions, fallism, dislocation, memorialising, remembering and forgetting, to our current relationship with history, along with some intimate and personal responses. Submissions incorporate notes and sketches, drawings, poems, instructions, installations, sculptures, paintings, films, performances, and text, and include critical and celebratory positions and conversations about coping and surviving, ranging from the individual to the universal, and the local to the national.

Artists: Saelia Aparicio, Phyllida Barlow, Alvaro Barrington, JJ Chan, Monster Chetwynd, Rabiya Choudhry, Jeremy Deller, Adham Faramawy, Navine G Khan-Dossos, Ryan Gander, Carl Gent, Holly Hendry, Roger Hiorns, Sam Keogh, Scott King, Phillip Lai, Lawrence Lek, Ghislaine Leung, Lloyd Corporation, Paul Maheke, Stuart Middleton, Oscar Murillo, Nashashibi/Skaer, Olu Ogunnaike, Hardeep Pandhal, Yuri Pattison, Elizabeth Price, Laure Prouvost, Aaron Ratajczyk, Tanoa Sasraku, SERAFINE1369, Tai Shani, Peter Spanjer, Jay Tan, Tenant of Culture, Edward Thomasson, Jala Wahid, Mark Wallinger, Dominic Watson, Alfie White, Gray Wielebinski, Bedwyr Williams, Cerith Wyn Evans, Zadie Xa & Benito Mayor Vallejo, Abbas Zahedi.