22 - 24 June
The North American Pavilion is an exhibition of eight young galleries from the United States, México and Canada. The galleries — all under five-years-old and hailing variously from New York City, Los Angeles, México City, Atlanta, and Montréal — will each occupy an entire room in the former townhouse- turned-exhibition space, with the simple brief to represent their unique North American perspective of curation and narrative.
The guiding principle behind the North American Pavilion is a celebration of the cultures existing side-by-side in the vast North American landmass, and exposing a British audience to this visual history. Curated by Alex Tieghi-Walker, gallerist, curator, and founder of design platform TIWA Select, the assemblage of galleries was selected for their directive in straddling the space between art, design and craft: “Presenting galleries with a wide range of perspectives from the place I now call home, within the beloved context of the place I called home for most of my life is an exciting opportunity to connect British design enthusiasts with the unique sensibilities coming out of North America,” says British-born and -raised Tieghi-Walker. “I think the way these galleries invite viewers into unexpected worlds will resonate with a British audience, and will further strengthen the connection between communities from either side of the Atlantic.”
The exhibition will include works presented by Los Angeles-based NOON Projects, one of the youngest galleries in the group, who place queerness and social practice at the heart of their program, and will showcase artists Ben Borden and Matt Momchilov alongside ceramics from Maddy Inez Leeser and Will Moss. Marta will bring works by North American design-world luminaries including Minjae Kim and Wentrcek–Zebulon, alongside land- scapes of the American East Coast by the Hamptons- based Swedish artist Virva Hinnemo. Meanwhile, TIWA Select, based in New York City, will demonstrate storytelling through textiles made across the USA, from intricate Navajo and Diné weavings to Applachian quilts and works by the Gee’s Bend quilting collective. The North American Pavilion will also illustrate the ongoing growth of North American galleries that specialise in and show collectible design, with additional participation from Bruises Gallery, Emma Scully Gallery, Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery, OF THE CLOTH, and Studio IMA.
Bruises Gallery
Montréal, Canada
Established in 2020 by Florence Provencher-Proulx and Isaac Larose, Bruises Gallery specialises in decorative art, functional sculpture and fantastic furniture, bringing forward a new distinctively Québécois perspective. Bruises celebrates the traces of time on objects and spaces while transiently inhabiting abandoned buildings of Montreal
Emma Scully Gallery
New York, USA
Emma Scully Gallery champions cutting edge con- temporary collectible design. Critical to the gallery’s mission is its exhibition program in which new work is commissioned around conceptual themes, often exploring the challenges of creating for today’s material society: the landscape of superabundance, the ecological cost of overproduction and the shift from the physical to the digital world.
Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery
New York, USA
Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery is a decorative arts and design gallery. The gallery commissions editions from contemporary designers around a concept, with the aim to support and steward their talents – encouraging the exploration of form, material, and ideas in a way that stimulates and expands their practice. By showcasing these editions alongside important historical pieces, the gallery hopes to stimulate an ‘antiquarian inquisitiveness.’
Marta
Los Angeles, USA
Founded in 2019, Marta makes space for artists to experiment with the utility of design, and for design- ers to explore the abandonment of function. Marta’s curatorial and publication programs take interest in both the process of an object’s creation as well the narrative of its creator(s). Marta embraces the intersection of disciplines, advocates for diversity in design, and promotes access to the arts.
NOON Projects
Los Angeles, USA
NOON Projects is a gallery in Los Angeles’ Chinatown neighbourhood. The gallery’s programme showcases artists who work from the heart, with a focus on queerness, the divine, the natural world, craft, and social practices. In addition, NOON Projects host an ongoing program of dinners, concerts, meditation groups, and community happenings. At the core of their values, NOON Projects aims to create a welcoming space for artists and the community to connect and flourish, under the belief that all are welcome.
OF THE CLOTH
New York & Atlanta, USA
Specialising in art forms rooted in ancestral traditions, OF THE CLOTH is a spatial design and art gallery that honours the traditions of a broad ethnography of makers and artists.
Studio IMA
México City, México
Studio IMA is a design studio and gallery located in the intimate setting of an apartment. The gallery discovers, represents, and promotes works by local designers and artists, and has worked with local curators including Su Wu and neighbouring galleries like MASA over its five years. In addition to display- ing the works of represented artists, Studio IMA seeks to collaborate with Mexican craftspeople to create one-of-a-kind and limited edition works.
TIWA Select
New York, USA
TIWA Select looks for and engages with artists and makers who share an affinity for the handmade. Largely self taught, with the ability to work with locally-sourced materials, collaborators draw on traditional practices in their craft, but always as an embodied interpretation of their time, environment, and culture. Their works are tethered to their personal stories, elevating everyday functional objects as artefacts of human experience.