Catch up on AGM 2020

We look back on this year's AGM 2020, sharing performances that celebrate four years of Somerset House Studios' dynamic resident artist community, with its first online edition of the annual building takeover series. 

Featuring performances broadcast live from Somerset House, as well as from across the UK and beyond, AGM 2020 premiered five new commissions from a specially curated line-up of artists and writers, including Aida Amoako, DeForrest Brown, Jr., Josiane M.H Pozi, Rian Treanor, Tyreis Holder, plus a performance from Sarra Wild; a line-up selected by a panel of existing and alumni resident artists: Beatrice Dillon, Jesse Darling, Klein and Larry Achiampong.

Somerset House Studios’ wider resident community also featured on the night, with works from Anna Mikkola, Malik Nashad Sharpe and Sam Williams.

The 2020 edition of AGM was centred on the importance of generosity and collaboration in a time of physical separation. We share a selection of these performances below.

Aida Amoako: To explain is to exercise

Showcasing a new piece of visual storytelling for AGM 2020, To explain is to exorcise saw Amoako explore the limitations of language and the anxiety of being misunderstood.

Aida Amoako is a writer and critic from London with bylines in Hyperallergic, The Times Literary Supplement and BBC Culture. 

Tyreis Holder: Dun Dunnah

The artist, poet and visual storyteller shared new poetry. Placing herself within an installation, Holder's performance centres around ideas of self, identity and lived-in experience, exploring the position of a young Black woman navigating the everchanging states of 2020.

Tyreis Holder is an artist, poet and visual storyteller born in South London, with heritage reigning from Jamaican/St Vincent descent. She heavily works in mediums pertaining to installation, textiles, performance, poetry, sculpture and sound. 

Josianne M.H Pozi: a series of expectation and disappointment - a preview to future works

The London-based filmmaker and visual artist showcases a new video work exploring the importance of elevation, friendship, and allyship in collaboration with Somerset House Studios alumni Klein.

Credits:
A film by Josiane M.H Pozi
Production Assistant: Connie Balaam & Adam Grant
Thanks to Klein and all involved
 

Deforrest Brown Jr.: a bitter but beautiful struggle

Streamed live from New York, the techno artist and theorist premieres an exclusive AV performance drawing upon themes in his 2020 album Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry, created in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The techno artist and theorist is based in New York, releasing music under the moniker Speaker Music.

Rian Treanor: Inter-symmetric Workshop

The Rotherham-based artist and producer Rian Treanor presented a new collaborative performance, developed through a series of workshops with five Visual Art & Design students from the BRIT School, using specially developed software to create a remote networked performance.

All the sounds were recorded by the participants around their school, though a series of sound recording exercises. These sounds were then used as source materials to create patterns together using a system designed by Rian. These were developed into a collaborative performance that was filmed for AGM 2020.

Credits:
Workshop by Rian Treanor
Performance by Ella Soni, Eve Giltinan-Allais, Joseph Henson, Joseph Teh, Margot Saywood
Facilitated by Dave Henckel
Filmed by Child Studio

Malik Nashad Sharpe

Malik Nashad Sharpe is a choreographer, dancer, and movement director whose work looks at the production of ontology, affect, and subjectivity from the perspective of marginalisation. A Somerset House Studios resident, they often work with the ulterior aspects of what it means to be both fully human, and simultaneously dehumanised. 

Anna Mikkola with Pekka Airaxin: The Earth-like Planet

Working with video, installation, text and time-based media, Studios artist Anna Mikkola explores how technology shapes subjectivities and mediates peoples relationship to the environment. Her investigation is centred on observations of how algorithms and scientific models organise lives into narratives. 

Mikkola's This Earth-Like Planet performative reading weaves together multiple characters to reflect on how futures are constructed. The performance includes an original composition and sound design by Pekka Airaxin, which he performed live for AGM 2020. 

Credits:
Performance by Anna Mikkola
Music by Pekka Airaxin
 

AGM 2020 is kindly supported by The Adonyeva Foundation.