R.I.P. Germain and Sara Sadik at FACT
Maja Lorkowska, Exhibitions Editor
This summer, FACT opens not one but two solo exhibitions, from artists R.I.P. Germain & Sara Sadik. While being immersive and visually captivating, they’re also taking a closer look at a number of serious topics.
R.I.P. Germain’s piece After GOD, Dudus Comes Next!” (2024) is a a large-scale installation developed as a result of the artist’s first major UK solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London last year. The piece explores cultural gate-keeping, alternative currencies and unexpected hidden structures that guide the way we experience the world.
The idea of ‘false fronts’ is central to the work, where a space can seem to be one thing but function as another. This is realised in the form of street facades within the gallery, with three different spaces that reveal or conceal their purpose, depending on who encounters them. Filled with objects, both visible and obscured, each visitor will experience them differently depending on past experiences and current circumstances. Some may provoke strong reactions while others will not resonate at all. It’s a fascinatingly immersive piece and one that should be experienced at first hand.
Sara Sadik focuses on love and brotherhood which guides her through the subjects of isolation, identity construction and empowerment in the unique subcultures developed by diasporas in France, that artist’s birthplace.
Visitors to the exhibition will encounter a pink-hued hookah lounge in XENON PALACE CHAMPIONSHIP (2023), an interactive film and installation environment. The installation mirrors elements from the film while the piece as a whole considers games as means of escapism, particularly for young men. In the film, the players compete with strange creatures called Xenons to win keys to the Xenon Palace, an escapist haven. Viewers can interact with the game during the film using brand new gesture-recognition technology, created as a result of the partnership between the arts centre LUMA Arles and Google Research Initiative. Not only does she comment on the wider social and cultural alienation experienced by the men in the film but Sadik also invites us all to join in and escape reality in the comfort of Xenon Palace.
FACT’s summer exhibitions are complex in their explorations of social norms, barriers and forms of exclusion but playful too, in how they approach these themes, for the ultimate thought-provoking yet thoroughly enjoyable art experience.
