21 May – 9 August 2025
Exhibition Wednesday – Saturday 12-5pm
BAW, Sonia Boyce, David Burrows, Jill Casid, Tamsyn Challenger, The Charmers, Michael Curran, Dubmorphology, Luana Duvoisin Zanchi, Bruce Gilbert, Minna Haukka, Colin Herd, Kang Seung Lee, Trevor Mathison, Kym McDaniel, Emily Mulenga, Fran Painter-Fleming, Ellis Parkinson, Tamsin Pender, Plastique Fantastique, Maggie Roberts, Anne Robinson, Shahana Rajani, Amina Ross, Yo-E Ryou, A.L. Steiner, Simon Tyszko, Luke Turner, Joseph Walsh, Sasha Wortzel are among the artists and writers contributing to this evolving, ‘exhillation’* (see event schedule here).
Manifesto for Sustainable Experimentation exhibits historic works and ephemera, interspersed with new commissions by Sonia Boyce, David Burrows, Luana Duvoisin Zanchi, Trevor Mathison, Emily Mulenga, Ellis Parkinson and Luke Turner, and performances, screenings, readings, workshops and other happenings to celebrate 30 years of Beaconsfield 1995-2025. Founders David Crawforth and Naomi Siderfin work in collaboration as BAW (Beaconsfield ArtWorks) to set the exhibitionary tone with visual and sonic interventions, inviting artist Minna Haukka to turn archival excavation into live performance – preparing the Beaconsfield archive to move to its new home in Tate Britain.
An international screening programme curated by queer ecofeminist artist A.L. Steiner extends the exhibition’s reach across time zones and cultural borders in collaboration with artists Jill Casid, Kang Seung Lee, Kym McDaniel, Shahana Rajani, Amina Ross, Yo-E Ryou and Sasha Wortzel, forming a digital transatlantic bridge in intersectional resistance.
Manifesto for Sustainable Experimentation strengthens key community relationships through artists’ mini-residencies that focus on exploring environment and draw attention to the construction of identity. Writer Fran Painter-Fleming curates a series of reading groups to explore these themes, while roving artist-reporters Michael Curran and Simon Tyszko will document the unfolding exhillation via video and radio, making a manifesto as much process as product. We understand ‘environment’ to mean social and cultural context as well as the geographical earth for which we are all responsible; and ‘exhillation’ as art’s key moment of encounter.
The project title is imbued with irony, since making art for most artists is simultaneously unsustainable (due to lack of resource) and yet sustained by the vocational pursuit of aesthetic and political expression. The exhibition seeks to bring to light some of the strategies in which artists engage to survive, thrive and be heard.
Manifesto for Sustainable Experimentation has been made possible by the generosity and creativity of participating artists, supported through a variety of funding sources. The project benefits from a recent local authority grant that has enabled BEMS+V: Beaconsfield’s new sound/vision studio facility.
Daily exhibition and activity
Wednesday-Saturday 21 May-9 August. Minna Haukka, Pyramid: Beaconsfield Archive 1995-2025. 12-5pm daily
Wednesdays and Thursdays Luke Turner Cross-examination, 2025. 12-5pm on 24, 27, 28, 29, 31 May / 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 18, 19 June / 2, 3, 9,16, 23, 24, 30, 31 July
Thursdays 22 May-7 August. Joseph Walsh Plant Gazing on site in garden residence (except 19.06 and 24.07)
Wednesday 11 June-Saturday 28 June. Kym McDaniel (USA), Amina Ross(USA). FlatScreen moving image Program 2 curated by A.L. Steiner
Wednesday 2 July-Saturday 19 July. Yo-E Ryou (South Korea), Jill Casid (USA). FlatScreen moving image Program 3 curated by A.L. Steiner
Wednesday 23 July-Saturday 9 August. A.L. Steiner (USA), Sasha Wortzel (USA). FlatScreen moving image Program 4 curated by A.L. Steiner
Manifesto for Sustainable Experimentation Events Schedule
Exhibition Press Release
Photo: Sonia Boyce, They’re Almost Like Twins (detail), 1995/2025. Photo Print.
* Naomi Siderfin, Invisible Stitches: revealing the seam between making and curating. PhD thesis, Slade School of Fine Art UCL, 2023.
