Stop Making Sense: Part 1 – Portals to understanding - Camden Art Centre

A two part online series from Phoebe Collings-James, looks to unravel what it means to facilitate and hold spaces for knowledge sharing.

This two part online series, curated by Camden Art Centre’s Freelands Lomax Ceramics Fellow, Phoebe Collings-James, looks to unravel what it means to facilitate and hold spaces for knowledge sharing. Mudbelly Teaches was conceived by Collings-James as an intersectional Black queer feminist space that seeks an intimate, reciprocal approach to learning. It is home to ceramics courses for Black people in London, taught by Black ceramicists & artists.

In Part 1, Collings-James invites artist, poet and dancer Serafine1369 and poet, artist, and tarot practitioner Daniella Valz Gen to consider how their practices of tarot, divination and performance can embody queer thinking around teaching in spaces outside and on the fridges of institutional structures. Rooted in spirituality, the artists consider how through these shared practices and spaces one can gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and find relief from alienation.

The Freelands Lomax Ceramics Fellowship supports emerging artists working with clay. Between 2017-21, the Fellowship offers artists part-time six-month residencies at Camden Art Centre with an exhibition in the following year.

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The Artist

Phoebe Collings-James is an artist based in London. Recent solo exhibitions include The Amount of Love You Have to Give is More Than I Can Stand, Ginerva Gambino, Cologne (2018), Relative Strength, Arcadia Missa, London (2018), Expensive Shit, 315 Gallery, New York (2017), ATROPHILIA (with Jesse Darling), Company, New York (2016) and Triste Tropiques, Liste, Basel (2016). Recent group exhibitions include You Feel Me, FACT Liverpool, Liverpool (2019), In Whose Eyes, Beaconsfield Gallery, London (2018), After Cesaire /Modern Tropiques, Platform Southwark, London (2018), Okey Dokey, Galerie Max Mayer, Düsseldorf (2017) and Bust Wide Open, Harlem Postcards, Studio Museum Harlem (2017). She has had performances and screenings at the Getty Museum, LA (2019), Sonic Acts, Amsterdam (2019), Café Oto, London (2019) and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018). Collings-James recently launched Mudbelly Teaches, a free ceramics course for Black people in London, taught by Black ceramicists and artists.