Following their successful application to the Artists' International Development Fund, a joint three-year programme between the British Council and Arts Council England, London based artist/curators Bean & Benjamin Sebastian have been undertaking an intensive residency at Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn NY. During the artists' residency in New York, Bean & Benjamin aim to develop new performance based work as well as curate platforms of international live/time based artists.

Over the last eighteen months Bean & Benjamin have worked collaboratively as arts facilitators & curators beneath the banner of ]performance s p a c e [ (Bean as director and Benjamin as assistant director) in Hackney Wick, London - throughout this time the artists have produced various exhibitions and events of contemporary live/performance art as well as continuing to cultivate thier individual visual performance practices and research. Although from varrying backgrounds and research interest, Bean & Benjamin have woven together not only a collaborative curatorial practice but also a dynamic network of contemporary artists and researchers.

Bean is an artist of nomadic nature. Currently based in London she is founder of ]performance s p a c e [ a newly established studio and project space in Hackney Wick.

]performance s p a c e [ aims to cultivate live work that critically and physically pushes the boundaries of body and space. It is a place where work can unfold without restraints of curation, duration or space; committed to supporting challenging and difficult work that embraces performance art as an ever-evolving medium.

Bean’s artistic practice stems from obsessive, paranoid, scientific and anthropological research. Her work has been described as deliberately “accidental, scattered, scuffed, blurry and incomplete”. Oscillating the poles of violence/meditation, power/control, movement/home; it revels in the feral actions, inscriptions and fringe existence of the nomadic body.

Currently focused on the inscription of her flesh, as an act of both reclaiming and disowning her body as material. The marking of the tattoo acts as the work and its documentation; questioning notions of performance as a bracketed event, the lines between art and life, the durational and the temporary.

She has presented work in Europe, Australia and Asia.

Benjamin Sebastian was born in Australia and has studied art and performance practices in Germany, Australia and the UK. He is a founding member of The Greestone Group, tension/intervention/restraint and ArtEvict. Currently, Benjamin is Assistant Director at ]performance s p a c e [ where he also holds a studio.

Sebastian's practice is interdisciplinary. His processes and work actively interrogate various dialectic relationships; intimacy and solitude, security and vulnerability, logic and the irrational.

He works primarily with the material of his body, paper, fire, found or reclaimed objects, to create assemblage and time based works that often reference components of continental and existential philosophy along with identity politics.

This practice is a refusal of classification via style or medium, continuously attempting to find reason in the irrational and the profound in the mundane through strategies of repetition, appropriation and duration."

The artist’s Live practice accentuates a process of Becoming and is greatly influenced by queer theory, collaboration, autobiography and emotional experience. Imagery of risk, threat, discomfort and transformation are utilized throughout his work to evoke a sense of displacement in the viewer.

Benjamin has exhibited throughout greater Europe, Australia and America. He is based out of London, UK.

"I see everything I do as a process of assemblage/becoming." - B.S. Benjamin Sebastian:www.benjamin-sebastian.com


For further information please contact Anna Martinou via: anna@performancespace.org or you can follow the artists and associated networks on twitter:

@aplaceofaction
@iambsebastian
@annam_art_inou
@GraceExSpace

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palimpsestism.tumblr.com
http://enolamai.tumblr.com
poppymiraclejackson.tumblr.com
performsmedia.tumblr.com
martinobrienperformance.weebly.com

aliensinny.tumblr.com
performancespace.org

]performance s p a c e [ calendar of events

The Exhibition showcasing Bean and Benjamin Sebastian's residency at Grace Exhibition Space, Alien(s) In New York, will take place across the 7th(Fri.), 8th(Sat.) & 9th(Sun.) of September.

Friday September 7th: 8pm-11pm - Group Action - Bean, Poppy Jackson and Benjamin Sebastian

Saturday September 8th: 6pm-11pm - Durational Performances by: Jordan Wayne Long, Benjamin Sebastian & Poppy Jackson

Sunday September 9th: 12pm onward - Durational work by Martin O'Brien and Bean.



Links For Confirmed Artist:
Bean
Benjamin Sebastian
Poppy Jackson
Jordan Wayne Long
Martin O'Brien