Artist statement

 

Hi am Ben Dawson(he/they)  I am queer artist based in east London, working between digital and physical spaces .

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“What does it mean to be human? – A digital deep dive in to mortality, asking the question of what it is to have a body physically and digitally”

 

My work orbits around our physical and digital identities and their symbiotic convergence and divergence, the question between real and virtual in the age of the internet's Omni presence plagues me . Owning a body is a complex and nuanced condition governed by socio-political conditions, thus proposing the question of autonomy , agency and fiction. These ethical questions frame my dissection into digital materiality.

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Things never die on screens; they get reborn. Renderings are transformed into scripts then films and soundscapes that ponder, creation myths, and technological automation of the self. I have an obsessiveness for images that carry cultural narrative from cowboys ,alchemists and queer bodies, they enact surrogates for world building narrative questions. My practice exists in flux between digital physical capacities, animation , film making, printed matter and objects. Material forms like print and objects exist as substrates that help form haptic connectors to the animated video works and vice versa. I actively take traces of the digital , then rip them  out into the physical.The results simply don't answer questions, but ponder them.

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Artist CV

Pave your Pathway screening programme for Art basel Hong Kong ,Colaberation with Film London,Videotage Honk Kong and G39 Cardiff , Art Basel Hong Kong ,2023

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Burning things , ,Pave your Pathway Colaberation with Film London,Videotage Honk Kong and G39 Cardiff , RCA Battersery screening programme ,2023

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Pave your Path fellow, in Colaberation with Film London,Videotage Honk Kong and G39 Cardiff , 2023

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Corporeal confusion,ACS gallery London,2022

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Up and coming – Newarts Projects group show 2023

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Tendrils, Queer Youth Art Collective, Queer Circle 2022

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FLAMIN Fellowship recipient ,2022-2023

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LCN creative mentorship programe ,2022

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Fridge, Hackey Wick, Anderson Contemparry ,2022

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Kammerlimmern, Nuenberg projecting mapping, ARBITRARY NAMES CANT DEFINE SUCH TASTE  ,2022

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WetDovetai l2:1Virtual show , 2022

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Made to Expire, the insititute of digital fashion colaberation and exhabtion,meta verse and granary square,2021

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Quad/Formt Future Focus  selsted artist,2021

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Perminant tempoary, The London design festival,Old Kent road , 2021

Set deisgn and art dircection Sami Fendal, 2021/2022

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up and coming -Athens digital arts festival,featuring ARBITRARY NAMES CANT DEFINE SUCH TASTE 

up and coming Trick film festival ,Dusseldof,2021 

 

Solo show -  ARBITRARY NAMES CANT DEFINE SUCH TASTE, Artsect gallery. 2021, 

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featured on Vicious collective

collective- https://www.viciouscollective.com/post/ben-dawson-doesn-t-know-and-neither-should-you

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Fridge, Hackney wick,2021

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Aire place studios, LGBTQIA postcard exhibitions ,7th circle of hell,2021

support exhibition, Hackney Wick underground, 2021

Nuha Ruby Ra "Run Run" music video ,2021

 https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/ben-dawson-run-run-animation-120421

The Radford Gallery ,"Uncommon Found" 2021 

CIRCA Arts -piccadilly billboard-"im calling your bluff" 30 seconds

Itsnicethat gradautes 2020 - https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/the-graduates-2020-continued-the-graduates-2020-170820

Socially distanced Peak- solo exhibition in Peak gallery of “If I show you more, am I less?” 2020

Auto:save presents:AnciantFutures in Organic cyberspace , virtual exhibition curated by GWENBA – featuring “Accepting this is your face isn’t mutually exclusive to your body”  2020

Grooks Gallery -“The rodeo never ends” 2020           

Cats cradle – “once you see it, you should acknowledge it” collaborative publication with Lucy Hutchinson – 2020

Short notice curated by Julie Myers – Kingston school of art - 2020

Four corners gallery assistant, archivist and press writer- 2019-2020

Bootleg cabaret 2 – Kingston school of art avionics building 2019

Point and shoot- exhibition organized by Lena Lewis King- Kingston school of art-2019

Fifth plinth project , group leader of “image” – Kingston school of art -2020

Book-ish stanley picker gallery -2019

b.yob Kingston school of art avionic building – 2019

Auto italia- army of love Alexa Karolinski, Ingo Niermann – gallery assistant and intern -2019

Poetry and story telling;home st johns Hampton wick 2019

Babys ballad performance organized by Chloe Webster- performer Kingston school of art 2019

Whitechapel gallery -Sophia Al-Maria: BCE – gallery assistant / volunteer - 2019

Auto Italia -  Unorganised Response gallery assistant and intern – 2019

Tate exchange – Inventory behaviors – performer and participant - 2019

Stanley Picker travel award winner 2019

Telling tales – collaborative project with Rachel Povey - 2019

The auction house - Kingston school of art avionic building – 2019

Beam me up – Kingston school of art avionic building - 2019

All you can readt - Stanley Picker Gallery 2018

UWTSD Digital residancey - 2018

Flotsom - Asylum Peckham - 2018

Cumbersome -Kingston School of Art 2018

Stope -Safe house 1 Peckham 2018

Work Work TinType gallery – performer for Harold Offeh

71 Days - Kingston School of Art 2017

Elysiumgallery/studio summer open- Elysium gallery 2017

​The Jane Phillips Award recipient UWTS Swansea 2017

 

​Education

BA fine art, Kingston School of Art – 2017- 2020

Foundation diploma UWTSD  2016 -2017

 

Publications

If I show you more, am I less ? – Artist book in collaboration with Ian Nabong -2020, edition of 25 produced

Work featured on Sad grads instergram post – 2020

Work featured on Quarantinedream2020 - 2020

Toothace zine – 2019/2020

Work featured Backlogzine Instergram - 2020

Codes and cocks -2019

I made your body so I could edit you -10 editions -2019

A year on film- editions- 2018

 

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