bingenTV

27 October - 8 December 2023
Preview 26 October, 6:30-9pm

bingenTV is conceived by artists Naomi Woo and Sophie Seita, in conversation with The Hildegard von Bingen Society for Gardening Companions, produced by Queer Art Projects and funded by Canada Council for the Arts and Arts Council England.

Read the press release here.

Photography by Laura Cobb.

Working with video, textile, autofiction, and various installation processes, Sophie Seita’s and Naomi Woo’s exhibition pulls out and reroots the speculative potential of archives and queer history. Developed in conversation with The Hildegard von Bingen Society for Gardening Companions, a queer-feminist collective originally founded by the German mediaeval mystic and musician Hildegard von Bingen in the 12th century and ‘propagated’ by the artists in 2020—the exhibition centres on a queer gardening talk show, bingenTV, supposedly shot in 1987 and never aired, until now. Playful and flirty, this genre-bending talk show features a cast of queer characters real and fictional, past and present, in a whirlwind jaunt through space and time. 

In addition to the three episodes of bingenTV, the exhibition also features new texts, two textile works, and installation pieces made specifically for the show.
 
For the duration of the exhibition, the space will be activated through readings, workshops, and performances.

October 26th, Reading by Sister Steve of Ophelia Drowning (Kell w Farshéa) (Opening event)

November 11th, 5-6pm: Performance by and Q&A with Youngsook Choi.

November 22nd, 4:30pm: Artist talk by Taey Iohe.

December 6th, 5pm: Conversation and Listening Party featuring Ashley Au (the composer of the bingenTV soundtrack) and Amy Crankshaw 

December 7th, 7-9pm: Closing Party featuring artists Sophie Seita and Naomi Woo, Her Ensemble, and Diarmuid Hester (Nothing Ever Just Disappears)