IceBlink Luck
Generation & Display
18 Trading Estate Rd London NW10 7LU
Rebecca Halliwell-Sutton, Louise Oates, Léa Porré
Curated by Kollektiv Collective
Programmed by Amélie Mckee
IceBlink Luck was an exhibition that brought together works by artists Rebecca Halliwell-Sutton, Louise Oates and Léa Porré, curated by Kollektiv Collective. Laying bare distinctive temporal loops, it mapped human environmental imprints across time, addressing the inaccuracy of a simplistic reading of time as linear. Within the slowly unfolding climate catastrophe, IceBlink Luck resorted to the tradition of science fiction, leaning on the genre’s potential to reconcile past, present and future, ultimately in attempts to grapple with the unknown.
Reimagining the space of Generation & Display as the surface of a distant planet haunted by memories, or hallucinations, of a human past, IceBlink Luck dissolved temporalities, entwining future relics with historic novelties. In so doing, the exhibition visualised the malleability of time. In a 2011 article Ursula K. Le Guin noted that she “learned a lot from reading the ever-subversive Virginia Woolf.” She recalls reading Orlando at the age of 17, and her fascination with the feeling of “the marvellous strangeness of that moment five hundred years ago – the authentic thrill of being taken absolutely elsewhere.” In search of this feeling, the exhibition aimed to confront the now by envisioning an alien future inhabited by fragments of the familiar. In it, Rebecca Halliwell-Sutton’s work looped in perpetual movement, reverberating cyclically through time and memory; Louise Oates’s sculptures resembled archaeological sites unearthing extraterrestrial traces within the permafrost; and Léa Porré’s transhistorical artefacts shined like a dream of our home planet, skewed in light-years, gothism now digital, the old echoing the new.
The interplay of visual languages signified layered temporalities and alluded to the dissonance between a revived Romantic longing for reconciliation with “nature” and the contemporary looming threat of ecological collapse. In the context of this anxious spiral, much of current ecological theory invites us to shift the emphasis to the emotive and sensorial posthumanism, pushing for a reevaluation of much-rehearsed notions of enlightened deduction, hierarchy and linearity. Feeling through layers of ecological exploitation, Timothy Morton exclaims “the only way out is through”, inviting the audience to delve deeper into the looped mess that is the climate catastrophe. To imagine such a way – one beyond the ever-anthropomorphising gaze – we reverted to the tools of sci-fi to decenter what we think we know; to propose that to stop fearing, we are to become familiar with the unknown – and to defend with sober heart.
For enquiries, contact us at info@kollektivcollective.com.
Generation & Display
18 Trading Estate Rd London NW10 7LU
Rebecca Halliwell-Sutton, Louise Oates, Léa Porré
Curated by Kollektiv Collective
Programmed by Amélie Mckee
I'm seeming to be glad a lot
I'm happy again, caught, caught in time
Expose the doubt and arm yourself well
Me, I defend with sober heart
IceBlink Luck (1990) by Cocteau Twins
I'm happy again, caught, caught in time
Expose the doubt and arm yourself well
Me, I defend with sober heart
IceBlink Luck (1990) by Cocteau Twins
IceBlink Luck was an exhibition that brought together works by artists Rebecca Halliwell-Sutton, Louise Oates and Léa Porré, curated by Kollektiv Collective. Laying bare distinctive temporal loops, it mapped human environmental imprints across time, addressing the inaccuracy of a simplistic reading of time as linear. Within the slowly unfolding climate catastrophe, IceBlink Luck resorted to the tradition of science fiction, leaning on the genre’s potential to reconcile past, present and future, ultimately in attempts to grapple with the unknown.
Reimagining the space of Generation & Display as the surface of a distant planet haunted by memories, or hallucinations, of a human past, IceBlink Luck dissolved temporalities, entwining future relics with historic novelties. In so doing, the exhibition visualised the malleability of time. In a 2011 article Ursula K. Le Guin noted that she “learned a lot from reading the ever-subversive Virginia Woolf.” She recalls reading Orlando at the age of 17, and her fascination with the feeling of “the marvellous strangeness of that moment five hundred years ago – the authentic thrill of being taken absolutely elsewhere.” In search of this feeling, the exhibition aimed to confront the now by envisioning an alien future inhabited by fragments of the familiar. In it, Rebecca Halliwell-Sutton’s work looped in perpetual movement, reverberating cyclically through time and memory; Louise Oates’s sculptures resembled archaeological sites unearthing extraterrestrial traces within the permafrost; and Léa Porré’s transhistorical artefacts shined like a dream of our home planet, skewed in light-years, gothism now digital, the old echoing the new.
The interplay of visual languages signified layered temporalities and alluded to the dissonance between a revived Romantic longing for reconciliation with “nature” and the contemporary looming threat of ecological collapse. In the context of this anxious spiral, much of current ecological theory invites us to shift the emphasis to the emotive and sensorial posthumanism, pushing for a reevaluation of much-rehearsed notions of enlightened deduction, hierarchy and linearity. Feeling through layers of ecological exploitation, Timothy Morton exclaims “the only way out is through”, inviting the audience to delve deeper into the looped mess that is the climate catastrophe. To imagine such a way – one beyond the ever-anthropomorphising gaze – we reverted to the tools of sci-fi to decenter what we think we know; to propose that to stop fearing, we are to become familiar with the unknown – and to defend with sober heart.
For enquiries, contact us at info@kollektivcollective.com.
14 – 22 September 2024
open by appointment
open by appointment
Installation view: IceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
Installation view: IceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
Drained (2024) by Louise Oates as part of IceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
Installation view: IceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
Installation view: IceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
Installation view: IceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
Imperma 67°34’42”N 134°46’22”E (2024) by Louise Oates as part of IceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
tis the ending of all moist things (2024) by Léa Porré as part ofIceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
Cling into snaps of static (2022) by Rebecca Halliwell Sutton as part of IceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
Installation view: IceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
Sunsets of Permadeath (Tambora) (2023) by Léa Porré as part ofIceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.
Thermokarst (2024) by Louise Oates as part of IceBlink Luck (14 – 22 September 2024) curated by Kollektiv Collective at Generation & Display. Image courtesy of Generation & Display. Photography by Vex Noir.