We have an interview episode! Gallerist Sarah Le Quang Sang showcases and promotes female and queer artists, fighting, one step at a time, to reduce the price gap between genders, the lack of LGBTQIA+ representation in archives, collections, art fairs and private collections, but also the linear conception of artistic careers.
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How empowering can the #artmarket be? How can a commercial gallery push boundaries? Be more inclusive? And what are the intersections between collections, trans rights, motherhood, family and queer communities? Sarah Le Quang Sang may not have all the answers, but she has all the good questions. She asks: why are birthdates important? Why is there an artistic career template? Who has access to museum collections? Art fairs?
If you enjoyed this episode, and if you enjoy reading, Joana's Substack might be for you.
A new star in the constellation of London galleries, Sarah Le Quang Sang, established a commercial gallery in Shoreditch in 2024–SLQS–to champion female and queer artists. We mention her current exhibition of three Vietnamese artists, Vicky Do, Hua Dung-Clerget and Duong Thuy Nguyen, as well as the previous exhibition by trans non-binary artist Bex Wade which prompted an acquisition of their work by the V&A, now shown at Young V&A Bethnal Green.
We had to mention the Supreme Court Ruling in past April reducing gender to biological sex, and thus legally erasing trans women particularly, and the trans community in general. Bex Wade was invited to write about the photos of the exhibition (Queer nightlife in the US in 2010s, a time of lightness and joy) in the context of anti-trans movements rising and becoming more vocal. I read an excerpt of the text at the end of the episode.
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For behind the scenes clips, links to the artists and guests we cover, and visuals of the exhibitions we discuss follow us on Instagram: @exhibitionistas_podcastBluesky: @exhibitionistas.bsky.socialexhibitionistaspod@gmail.com
About us: If you enjoy the podcast A Brush With and You Are Good, you will enjoy Exhibitionistas, where artists are unveiled through current and pertinent angles, and through thoughts and feelings. These podcasts were a great inspiration for our format because they're nerdy and engaging, researched and approachable. The co-host and the guest co-host or interviewed guest engage in a conversation informed by an accessible and lively presentation of the subject, through which you can reflect on a show or a topic or discover it, learn or re-evaluate artistic topics crossing over into our everyday lives.
Chapters
00:00:00 Introduction
00:06:42 Sarah Le Quang Sang
00:11:07 First Connection to Art
00:14:12 Art and Motherhood
00:17:04 Adapting and Reinventing the Rules
00:22:12 The Impact of Galleries’ New Ethos on Collectors
00:23:03 Why Open a Commercial Gallery Now?
00:25:51 Responding to Women and Queer Erasure in the Market
00:28:13 How to Understand Identity in Art
00:41:02 Future of the program
00:48:13 An Excerpt from Bex Wade’s Text Yes / No (Art Review)
#contemporaryart #lgbtqia+ #sarahlequangsang #exhibitionistas #exhibitionistaspodcast #joanaprneves #bexwade #vickydo #ingridberthonmoines #dyanagravina
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
I'm Joanna Pyroneves, your host,and this is exhibitionist this
I'm an independent writer and curator with a wide-ranging 2
decades career in contemporary art, from commercial galleries
to art fairs, from research to curating, from Lisbon to London
(00:26):
through Paris. But when I'm asked what I do
outside the out world, the inevitable reaction is, oh, I
don't know anything about contemporary art.
Ouch. So call it a midlife crisis,
call it arrogance, but I gave myself the task of trying to
fill that gap with Co host conversation.
(00:47):
Episodes centered around a genuine exchange of thoughts,
feelings and precious context around solo exhibitions,
interviews and special episodes based on a particular topic to
keep you alert and on your toes.If you want to read further into
some of the topics discussed in the episodes and more, you can
(01:11):
also find me on Sub Stack under my name, Joanna Pyroneves.
Hi there, a few notes on the episode you're about to listen
to. So I'm interviewing Sarah Lacung
Sung because to my knowledge shehas the only commercial gallery
(01:33):
dedicated to showcasing and promoting art produced by women
and queer artists in the UK. So the gallery is called SLQS
and is based or is located in Shoreditch in London.
So when I mention the artist BexWade and the acquisition of
(01:56):
their work by the VNA. So Bex Wade had an exhibition
right before the current one at SLQSI say that Bex Wade was the
first non binary artist in the collection which is not correct.
So when you get to that point ofthe introduction, remember that
Bex Wade is a trans non binary artists.
(02:19):
And in the words of Zorian Clayton, another of Bex's
photographs purchased with art font support, has recently gone
on display at Young Vienna in Bethnal Green.
This is believed to be the firsttime an out trans artist work
has gone on display in a permanent gallery at the VNA End
(02:43):
of Quotes. So this is to celebrate.
And Zorian Clayton was the curator responsible for this
acquisition. So it is important to set the
record straight, straight and also to be joyful and to
celebrate this state of affairs at the VNA and in the permanent
gallery. But it's also important, I
(03:08):
think, to acknowledge the current climate of erasure of
trans rights and the narrowing of notions of gender.
And so I thought of reading an excerpt of a text Wade wrote for
the summer edition of Art Review, and available in its
entirety there. So as Sarah mentions eloquently
(03:31):
in the interview, we are indeed living at a time where trans and
queer communities are being failed and where gender is being
reduced on a legislative level. So reading a part of Bexwade's
text is to put it out there. It's my voice, but it's their
(03:51):
experience. So stick around for the
interview with Sarah and her fascinating trajectory, and then
to listen to Bexwade's words after the interview.
Without further ado, let's do this.
And thank you for being here. So far, the highest ranking
(04:17):
episodes of the first season andthe last season of exhibition
Isters are Philip Guston, Gerhard Heshta, followed by
Marina Abramovic, Dido Mariama, Tanya Kovacs, Yoko Ono, Judy
Chicago and Aria Dean. I would have put my money on
Abramovich, Yoko Ono and Judy Chicago being the most listened
(04:39):
to, especially because they've had so much press coverage and
two of them are two big stars. But oh and also I'm a female
host so I thought you know, morefemales listen to females, but
no. And you'll be surprised to know
that the majority of listeners to the Abramovich episode are
(04:59):
male. So I can tell you exactly the
percentage. It's 62.5% and 37.5 are female.
And there are non no non binary listeners.
So this is really interesting because in the 8 ones.
So if you don't look at ranking,there's five women and three
men. But what's interesting as well
(05:21):
is in the 12 episodes, we have more women than men.
So that kind of reflects the program as well.
And of course, this is anecdotal.
We all know that to have a real statistical data, you need far
more examples and you need far more numbers.
(05:41):
But it's still interesting. It's just one season, it's just
one experience. But it's interesting to know
that Abramovich coming in 3rd place is really telling because
she's a second generation. She's in the second generation
of feminism, which is a very typical generation of saying, as
(06:02):
she has said that had she had children, she wouldn't have
gotten where she did. Of course she tracked back.
She kind of course corrected on that one.
But it's true that if you think back in and and look at the
artists who made it from that generation, a lot of them had to
kind of what the third generation of feminists have
(06:25):
sort of read into their attitudes.
They kind of went against notions of the female gender.
So for example, being mums was aquestion counterexample Mary
Kelly that we may talk about. So the reason why I'm mentioning
these analytic results and thesevery questionable readings, of
(06:48):
course, I'm very conscious of that is because today I have a
special guest. So this is an interview episode.
A new star in the constellation of London galleries, Sarah
Lekong Sung, who has establishedthe gallery in Shoreditch last
year called SLQS and which champions female, queer or non
(07:09):
binary artists. I was intrigued as soon as the
gallery popped up on my exhibitionist's Instagram feed.
So the reason why my curiosity was peaked further is precisely
because Sarah doesn't have your usual career path of art
history, culture management, working at Sotheby's or
(07:30):
Christie's, then working in commercial galleries and
eventually opening your own gallery.
Which by the way, not many people take that step.
So, you know, dear listeners whoare students, build your own
career path. There's a lot of stuff out there
to do. You can be an art advisor.
You can work for funding in big institutions or small ones,
nonprofits. You can do lots of things.
(07:52):
And Sarah did precisely that. So I decided to invite her
because I thought, OK, I'm really interested.
I want to know how exactly she came.
She arrived at Shoreditch. Who was this person?
I thought, and you know, I won'tknow who she is at the end of
the episode, but a dear listener, I think we're going to
really love listening to what she has to say.
(08:14):
So Sarah is Franco, Vietnamese. She had a multicultural
upbringing. She lived in many places amongst
which Cameroon, UK, France. She studied acting in Paris and
then she came to the UK, to Manchester where she studied
international fine, international business, finance
(08:36):
and economics and then she movedto Dubai where she lived for
eight years and she earned a living in real estate while
taking a keen interest in experimental theatre of all
things. She was Co founder of one of the
city's first experimental theatre companies.
(08:57):
But in her mid 30s with a 2 yearold child, she returned to
London for an MA in Performance at Goldsmiths in 2016.
She then became Co director of the charity Procreate Project,
which promotes artist mothers, and through which she curated
the first Mother Art Prize and Oxytocin Birthing the World
(09:21):
Exhibition program. And I'm quoting her here.
She said becoming a mother changed everything.
My schedule, my mobility, my decisions.
Speaking with the Art Newspaper,Le Kangsang said that starting
the gallery brings together the two parallel strands of her
career, a career as an artist and in business.
(09:45):
The gallery was launched on International Women's Day.
Interviewed by Melanie Girlis for the Financial Times, she
described her venture as a long game.
So far the gallery has showcasedthe work of Bex Wait, a non
binary artist whose work has been acquired by the VNA, which
turned them into the first non binary artist in the collection.
(10:08):
Diana Gravina, Poly Penrose, Ingrid Berton, one Mia
Wilkinson, Kate Williams and currently so the current
exhibition, Vietnamese artists Vicky Do Ho Dang Clergy and
Duong Thai Otui Nguyen. I apologise for the
mispronunciation of the names, surely.
(10:30):
So, Sarah, welcome to the podcast.
I'm really, really happy to havethis conversation with you.
Thank you so much. What a power introduction you've
given me. I'm really flattered and really,
really honoured to be on your podcast.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
It's a pleasure because I did goto the gallery.
We had a sort of a meeting and I, we spoke for about an hour
(10:54):
and I just remember leaving the gallery and thinking, well, that
was not enough to answer the question, was this woman?
Why? How did she come here?
But it really, really kind of sparked even more interest.
So I'm going to ask you the first question.
So this is exhibition esters. I'm always interested in knowing
where was your first connection to visual arts?
(11:17):
How did it start? Was it in the family?
Was it later in life? I must have been 8 and my
parents took, took me to the Dali Museum in Girona, in
Figueres. And so, you know, Salvador Dali,
basically there was this municipal theatre that was
(11:40):
destroyed during the Civic War, the Spanish Civic War, civil
war, sorry. And he renovated this theatre.
But the whole, I mean, you know,the whole place is a work of art
and it's a surrealist work of art.
And I went back actually a few years ago because I was just so
struck by this memory. There is a car outside where you
(12:04):
have to feed with people inside and you have to feed it a coin.
And when a coin drops, rain starts raining inside a car.
And I wish I just remember beingtotally mesmerized by this
impossibility of raining inside and how performative I think,
(12:26):
how performative I think I've, you know, my interest in art has
always been through performance.But I think, yeah, the taste for
experimental also came from whenI was 9, my family moved to West
Africa. We moved to Gabon for three
years, and then we moved to Cameroon.
And I was immersed again, you know, thanks to my mother.
(12:50):
She was a cultural journalist and she was fascinated and a
huge supporter of the local art scenes.
So she really introduced me to, I think what I remember is
really being immersed in music, you know, by key African
musicians, you know, like Manu Dibango, Salif Klater, Angelique
(13:14):
de Geoff and Benam. You know, this is also very much
part of my childhood. So quite a classical training,
but then also something, you know, very different.
Being immersed into the culturalrichness the West Africa was
also very pivotal in my understanding of the arts.
Is there an exhibition that you can think of when you finally
(13:38):
came to visual arts that sort ofmade the cut for you, that kind
of like really showed you something new or made you decide
that visual art was really whereyou wanted to go because you
also have a practice as an artist.
So that probably was a shift there.
I presuming it was an exhibitionbut might not have been.
(13:59):
It was my experience creating anexhibition with visual artist
that really widened my perspective.
I went back to study at Goldsmiths and I studied
performance making. At the time I had a 2 year old
and then in my second year I wasalso pregnant with my second
child and I was really looking for other artists who were
(14:26):
mothers or carers at the time. Being a mother was a was a huge
part of my identity. I think I probably felt that my
identity was almost reduced to my mothering responsibilities.
So there's a brilliant library, the Women's Art Library in
(14:46):
Goldsmiths. And Althea who who runs the
library, Althea Grenham, spoke to me about Procreate Project.
And Diana Grovina, she's the founding director of this
organization called Procreate Project, which is a non profit
space that really supports artists for our mothers and
carers through several initiatives.
(15:08):
And when I met her, she had the Mother Mother House studios,
which were artist studios with integrated childcare.
She was piloting this new concept, but we were we we also
started working together on thissymposium, which was oxytocin
birthing the world. But what really transitioned me
(15:31):
from performances to the visual art is when she asked me to
create the first Mother Art Prize.
And that was really looking. You know, we had an open call.
It was on the theme of leftovers.
You know what are are your leftovers creatively in terms of
your sexuality, in terms of youridentity when you are mothering,
(15:52):
you know what is left unused. Can leftovers be used for your
creativity? There was a winner which was
Mary Martin who won for her filmThe Divide.
So I think working and creating this exhibition with 22 artists
that I mean, except for Mary Martin's film, were very
(16:13):
different to theatre, Very, verydifferent to performance.
You know, we had sculpture, drawing, photography,
installations, mixed media installations.
That really opened up for me a different world because the
theatre world is very separate Iguess to the visual art world.
(16:36):
Performance is striding in between rejecting theatres.
I guess my experience was like, you know, going to Goldsmiths
for two years with like performance.
Live art is essentially rejecting some of the tropes of
performance. It's not acted.
It's very much a lived experience.
(16:56):
And then creating this exhibition really widen even
more my perspective into visual art.
And so in terms of your experience of being of being a
mother and being at Goldsmith's,I'm really interested also if
this experience has had an impact on how you see the art
(17:20):
world as a professional structure.
So like a set of unwritten rulesand behaviours that are very
much there, but there aren't spelled out as such, if I may
say. So like it's a life that is not
very conducive to be to having afamily.
So did you think about that as well?
And how does that entail then setting up a gallery and in your
(17:45):
gallery do you think about thoseaspects?
Yes, totally. I mean you know, when I was at
Goldsmiths I used to live in in Bethnal Green and Goldsmiths is
was an hour away from, you know,door to door really.
It took me an hour to get to NewCross.
I had a 2 year old child that was between a Charmander, a
(18:09):
nurse, you know, a nursery. I had a very different life to
the students who were in my course.
You know, they were all living in South London.
They were all hanging out after lectures.
I was just running back and forth.
I was running back and forth. I mean, I had a child that
didn't sleep. I was waking up at 5 trying to
(18:30):
catch up with some work. You know, it was a very
different experience. That's taking me back to so many
memories. That we'll probably try to
forget How. Difficult.
Having young children is, you know, I had access to two
(18:50):
residencies. I had, I did a weekend with the
live art development agency, which was I think the first
weekend I had spent without my child where I could focus
exclusively on thinking and sharing with other participants
(19:11):
in the residency. And then later on a few years
ago, again, I had the opportunity to do a five day
residency with UK new artists inLincoln.
Again, you know, being child free, being able to think, you
know, because it's very, I foundit was just really difficult to
even think or to even have time to think really clearly.
(19:37):
But you know, that's probably the maximum amount of time I
could really go on a residency. You know, I talked to other
artists who work in the gallery who have caring responsibilities
as well. You can't just disappear for one
month. You don't potentially have the
support system and maybe also you don't want to.
(19:57):
And then when I was thinking about opening the art gallery, I
mean, yes, of course, you know, I did think, oh, maybe I could
work in an art gallery for a while.
But I didn't think that was possible.
I didn't think, you know, I, I want to have a life which is
flexible. I want to be able to attend my
children's sports day and the five different Christmas events
(20:21):
that were put on by the schools.From a personal level, I wanted
to create an organization that can be flexible.
I also wanted to set up a gallery that would discuss, you
know, problematic definitions ofwhat is an emerging artist, what
is a mid caring mid career artist.
(20:47):
Can we remove these definitions?I'll remove date of birth for my
artist biographies. I don't think it's relevant.
I don't think it's relevant if you've done X amount of
exhibition by the time you're 30.
Have you been in an institution?I think we need to really
rethink these definitions and bemore inclusive by acknowledging
(21:10):
that people have got different career paths.
And if you are, you know, emerging or re emerging because
you emerge in your 20s and then you got busy in your 30s, maybe
you, you know, you're back fullyinto your artistic practice in
your 40s. You've got a life experience.
(21:31):
But I'm also working with, you know, artists who are younger
and who are asking themselves, what happens to my career if I
have a family, you know, can I work with a gallery that will
support this? You know, and I think these are
really important questions to think about and to have with
(21:52):
collectors. You know, I went to Milan for
Mega Art Fair in April and I wasquite surprised by a lot of
collectors asking me how old is this artist?
Because I want to support an emerging artist.
And really, you know, and I really had to to be like, all
right, hold on, let's stop, Let's let's discuss this.
Let's have a conversation. When you move to the market, as
(22:14):
you say, people have really specific expectations of what an
artistic career is. So what you're doing is very
interesting. And now I'm interested in
knowing how the collectors reacted to your spiel.
How did they receive your information?
I think, you know, you can plantseeds, but it will take time.
(22:37):
It will take time to have fundamental shifts in the
market. It will take time.
And I can't be doing this by myself, you know.
So I think it's also widening this conversation with
galleries. Institutions all demand all the
players within the market to really be able to create change.
(23:00):
So, you know, it's one conversation at a time.
I'm really curious as well, because when I saw your gallery
and I saw, you know, the very specific, specific mission you
gave it, I thought that's reallycourageous because we're living
in a very conservative time in the market.
People are looking at painting alot, really going back.
(23:21):
It's like the author, this is inliterature, Rachel Cusk said,
sometimes I look at the literature around me and the
and, and what's being read and talked about and it's as if
modernism had never happened. And I sometimes think it's as if
conceptualism, that's never happens at times, you know, when
I go to galleries, which great, you know, every, it was very
(23:42):
patriarchal. All movements in the 20th
century were very patriarchal. And I acknowledge that.
But it is true that looking at painting only can be really
conservative as well. And this probably not the
solution either. So I'm really interested in
knowing, you know, why you choseto open a a commercial gallery
in the current climate. So yes, I mean, I worked as an
(24:05):
artist and I work with nonprofits.
That also allowed me to see how much funding was disappearing
and was being removed and how political funding is as well.
So I think that was one of the reason why I set up a commercial
(24:27):
gallery. I decided to really specialized
and really championing women andqueer artists because, I mean,
there is plenty of data and statistics that shows you the
gender inequality in the market.You had, you know, the freelance
(24:47):
foundation that did several reports on the representation of
women in specifically in the UK.You had a book by Hetty Judah
which is on how to include, you know, artist parents and, and
and others, which is also a key publication in giving you
(25:08):
statistics as well. There needs to be more research
for career artists as well. And some of this research for
women artists has been removed as well and have stopped.
And that's worrying, you know, that is, you know, that is
worrying that we don't have, youknow, a lot of this research
stopped in 2022 and actually win2025.
(25:29):
And we don't have necessarily upto date statistics, but it's
very, very clear, you know, there is more women than men
entering art education. There is more men represented
and being shown and so earning as well a lot more.
(25:51):
But also in a political time where women and queer rights are
being revoked and in the commercial sector, there is not
that many galleries that say we support women and queer artists.
They might do it through the programming, but they don't say
it. And I think it's important to be
(26:12):
unapologetic about it and to saythis is what we're doing because
it's needed. Absolutely.
You know, my daughter just sent me on Instagram a post of a
young woman saying that recentlythe police has been allowed to
search women's medical history and home if they've had a
(26:37):
miscarriage. Right.
I mean. What does that mean?
And I was also thinking about, you know, lesbian couples who
have children. You know, there's two women in
there, male artists who are parents and who want to parent
fully, you know, with dedication.
(26:59):
Have you come across situations where there's different kinds of
families, where unconventional and non traditional notions of
family with children? Where and what's difficulties do
people face in those situations?You know, on the question of,
you know, non heteronormative families, I think the, I think
(27:23):
with, you know, gender, the importance is not to make a
decision on the behalf of someone else.
I think what we have to do is tobe open and to listen to
different experiences. So I'm not here to be able to
define who is a woman, who is queer.
(27:46):
That's not my role. My role is not to define people.
People have to define themselves.
My role is to create a space that feels inclusive.
And I think my role is to createa space where if you are, if you
don't fit the heteronormative oryou're not CIS gender, that you
(28:06):
can still be. You can still feel safe, and you
can still feel like this is a space for you.
That takes me to my question about identity, which you've
started talking about. So I don't know if you're
familiar with the this article that many people have been
talking about Dean Kissick's article, which was published in
(28:30):
Harper's Bazaar, about the fact that identity politics are
destroying art and are making uslook and curate bad art in
museums. I was wondering if you see any
pitfalls in this question of identity when it comes to the
market? Talking.
So you're talking about the painted protest, right?
By the article by Dean Kissick that was that was published.
(28:51):
Thank you for thank you for saying the title which I forgot.
Yeah, by a few months ago. It's an interesting article
because I think it's missing an important question, and I think
it's missing the question of whyare artists making work about
identity. So it's only looking at it from
(29:15):
a viewer's perspective and from this particular, you know, it's
pretty much from Dean's perspective really.
But you know, it's obviously it takes a lot of time for artists
to make work. It's a huge amount of time and
research and experimentation. So why are so many artists
making work about identity? I think this is the question
(29:38):
that we should be asking ourselves.
We have an exhibition that includes Vicki Doe.
It's called Only Your Name and it's about the migration journey
of the Vietnamese diaspora from Vietnam to Hong Kong and then
and then to the UK. It's a very peculiar story
because the Vietnamese diaspora,you know, essentially the reason
(30:00):
we have Vietnamese diaspora herein the UK is because Hong Kong
was a British colony. So that's very interesting to
think about. I was talking to Vicky.
She's based in Saigon. But you know, she said something
that interested me. She said I didn't make after
this film, she didn't make work for six years because she didn't
know what, she didn't know what was important to her anymore.
(30:26):
And I think, you know, if an artist is going to make work, is
going to dedicate so much time and effort into making work,
it's because they think it's important.
And there are some, I think, youknow, this is the question we
should be asking. So yes, OK, Dean is fed up with
(30:47):
seeing so many work about identity, but it's obviously
really important for these artists to be making work at
that time. Often I would say artists make
work because it interests them on a micro level.
So it might be based on a personal experience, but then
often, you know, artist will then widen their research onto a
(31:12):
macro level. And so it is a reflection of
society. And I think that in those times
that we are now where identities, you know, are
threatened, you know, trans people are threatened, queer
people are threatened, women's rights are threatened.
I don't think identity work necessarily about identity is
(31:34):
going to do to die down. I think there will be more of it
because maybe there will be lesswork about identity if if it
wasn't relevant anymore, you know.
But I also think it's interesting because in this
article, he obviously talks about, you know, the Venice
Banali last year on Foreigners Everywhere, which is very much a
(31:59):
retrospective of artists that have been marginalized.
This is a whole new Canon of history of art, which I want to
know about. I don't think this is, but it's
interesting to think about this retrospective and to think about
how we interpret the meaning of this artist now in our
(32:22):
contemporary context, when maybethe artist at the time wasn't
specifically making work about identity.
We see it now as about identity,but maybe that was not the main
goal, the main message. So the last exhibition we had
was a solo exhibition of Becks Wade, who's a trans non binary
(32:44):
photographer who is based in theUK but has documented the queer
community for 20 years. And we showed some of the
earliest work, which was early 2010, queer nightlife
photography. So you put it in the context of
Wendy's image were taken. This was on a personal level
(33:05):
when Bex was finding out about the own queer identity, but also
for the wider community. It was before same sex marriage
was legalized in the US. It was the beginning of the
Obama years, and it felt like a really joyous time, a time of
possibility, a time of change. It feels like a lifetime ago.
(33:29):
Right. So now you Fast forward 15 years
later, we have this exhibition, we have this incredible joyous
pictures, you know, photographs on our wall.
You know three of them, like as you mentioned in the
introduction, were acquired by the Vienna.
So they are of historical significance, a reflection of a
certain time. And, you know, the show opened a
(33:53):
week after, you know, the devastating, you know, Supreme
Court announcement of what the legal definition of a woman is,
which has been exclusive, excluding, you know, trans women
and, and the trans community. And which was decided without
(34:14):
discussion with the trans community, which was taking us
back to a point we were talking about earlier, which is making
decisions on behalf of others, you know, And suddenly these
images on the wall became reallypolitical.
There was one particular image, which is called New York Nights,
which was the person. It was taken at a lesbian night.
(34:37):
So a person, presumably, you know, a woman urinating in a
urinal. And, you know, when Becks talks
about making this image, they walked into the toilet.
They were like, oh, sorry. You know, the person was like,
no, great, take a photo. And you know, the way Becks
describe tried it, it was spontaneous, it was joyous, it
(34:57):
was performative, it was a collaboration.
And, you know, 15 years later, you look at it in a context when
we where all the media was obsessed about who's going to be
using which toilet. It almost became, you know,
there's a collector who acquiredit.
And you ask him about the marketand collectors and, you know,
collectors who acquired Beck's works, Yes.
(35:20):
Are collectors that want to support a trans artist.
There are obviously collectors who are, you know, want to see
queer images as part of the collection, want to include the
queer gaze in the collection. And you know, the collector who
(35:42):
bought this work said this is the image of the year.
There is no other image. And Art Review Commission begs
to write an article about this work, which will be published
soon. So I think there is, yes.
Why are artists making work and how is it being viewed in the
(36:02):
current context and defined eyesidentity?
That's fascinating because that's particular definition of
women. I was so taken aback by the fact
that it didn't focus on the trans community as a whole, but
it focused on trans women. And again, it's always that
(36:25):
stigmatization of femininity andthe reduction of the notion of
femininity. And I was writing the other day
about something, I mean, notionsof gender from the the the
beginning of the century. And I was rereading this text
where Freud was looking at his daughter and was thinking, oh,
women were aren't inventors. You know, women didn't invent
(36:46):
anything. They didn't have the minds for
that. And then he kind of took it back
because Anna Freud was at the loom and he thought himself OK,
Of course, they probably invented the loom because the
pubic hair is hiding their desire for a penis.
So this focus on the genitals ishere culturally so much such a
(37:11):
such a critical thinker for our communities and for our society
and for our culture. And at the same time such
terrifying writing about notionsof gender.
I was kind of thinking, So what can we do?
So do you, do you have any wordsto put out there in terms of
institutions? I think the VNA is a great
(37:33):
example. You know, I mean, when when this
acquisition took place with the VNA, they actually received some
money from Art Fund to diversifythe collection and to
specifically include a trans artist.
And I think that these pots of fundings are critical and
(37:56):
necessary for institutions to beable to acquire work.
We still need to do a lot of work into diversifying,
diversifying boards of institutions so they reflect
more, you know, our society and also the artistic landscape.
(38:23):
Well, who are the members of theartistic community more than the
artistic landscape? You do you mean the opinion
makers, the the people who have like power in those, like
decisional power in those institutions, Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. I think in terms of decisional
power, we need to have, you know, I mean, obviously the, you
(38:45):
know, the curator Zion Clayton, who was responsible for this
acquisition for Beckswaid, is part of making the queer and
trans community. And so we need more diverse
voices when it comes to institutions, not just, you
know, at the artist level, but at the curatorial level, but
(39:06):
also at the managing level and board of direct, you know, board
members of institutions that have got huge soft powers.
So we need diversity across across the board.
I think with, you know, the state of the public funding at
the moment, I think that privatecollectors have a huge role to
(39:30):
play and. Agreed.
Agreed on all. Yes, absolutely.
I mean, you know, it's interesting.
We had, I was part of the LondonGallery Weekend this weekend,
which is great. It's an event, you know, that
invites 125 galleries to participate and to put on events
(39:52):
all weekend. You know, we had an artist walk
through, we had a tour with Martin Clark at the gallery.
It was a real moment of activation, but it was also a
real moment of meeting institutions.
So London Gallery Weekend again has got funding to be able to
(40:13):
invite international curators. To come to London.
And so I met, you know, international curators in
countries where there is no public funding.
So I know we complain about our,you know, how much our public
funding is decreasing, but actually there are countries
that has, that has no art council or that has no public
(40:35):
funding at all. And there, you know, patronage,
private institutions, private collections have a big role in
making sure that all artists aresupported, making sure that all
genders are supported and tryingto rebalance that, you know,
(40:59):
gender inequality, which is in the market.
Can you unveil a little bit whatyou're thinking about in terms
of the future of the program of the gallery?
Yeah, sure. I mean, we, we have a solo
exhibition that's going to be inthe autumn with Damaris Athene,
who's actually the work that youcan see behind me.
(41:20):
Well, that's part of one of her series called Leighton Space.
And yes, I think I'm really looking forward to Damaris
because she's incredibly ambitious in her vision.
And this is going to be her first solo exhibition in a, you
know, in a commercial gallery. I've been following and I've
been part of her journey for a long time.
(41:41):
She was part of my first exhibition in a physical space
on Chondrit St. last June and then I showed her at the Women
Art Fair. I took her work in Mega, which
was incredibly well received andall placed within private
collections. So to be able to now be able to
say, right, well, we've done allthat journey and now you know,
(42:05):
you've got this space to do a solo exhibition is I think it's
it's yes, it's great collaborative process.
She creates incredible installation and sculptures made
of fabric and glass. And, you know, her research goes
(42:25):
incredibly in details and is about interspecies relationship,
specifically in the underwater world, trying to make us think
outside of bodies, trying to make of to make, trying to make
us view our body matter reality differently through, yeah,
intersection with other species,but also the digital.
(42:48):
So I'm really excited about that.
Again, I've got another solo show with Kate Williams, who was
part of the first exhibition here in February against an
incredible ambitious project. Kate creates large scale fabric
work and she's going to create aan installation in the gallery.
(43:10):
I can't tell you much more because I want to keep it.
It's so exciting. But yes, it's basically going to
be, I guess, an immersive space where the gallery floors,
ceilings, you know, will be she will create a cocoon
essentially. And she plays a lot with
perspective. I showed her work in, in, in
(43:31):
Mega in Milan, which was probably 1 of definitely the
favourites of the fair because she plays a lot with illusions
and perfect and perspective. And she, she describes her works
as delicious. She invites you to enter a
delicious illusion world, which yeah, is, is is exciting.
(43:53):
And obviously I'm also looking at art fairs in London and also
internationally. Are you thinking of representing
artists? Are you going to work in a in a
sort of a traditional model, or are you trying to reinvent the
model a little bit? No, I'm looking to represent
artists. I mean, so far I am working with
(44:15):
artists, which is flexible in a way where, you know, works are
consigned, but if there are other opportunities for artists
to show their work, opportunities are discussed.
And essentially I think that, you know, if you're an artist
entering the commercial art world, it's probably beneficial
for you to be working with different galleries.
(44:36):
It's beneficial for the galleries as well.
So I'm also working with, you know, collaborative models.
I'm taking Diana Taylor, one of the artists who was exhibiting
my first exhibition, to do a solo show in LA in July with
another gallery which opened recently as well called Don't
Look Project. So it's also about, you know,
(44:57):
what opportunities I can find internationally, which is not a
fair, which is a collaboration with other galleries.
I do want to represent artists and I will be representing
representing artists either by the end of this year or the
beginning of next year. That I think it's important to
(45:17):
take my time and for both me andthe artist to test the
relationships before engaging into representation.
And that is through doing RIP exhibition or doing solo
exhibition or art fairs togetherbefore fully committing to, you
(45:40):
know, representation. I think that that building a
relationship with the gallery isa very, very important aspect of
the work. It really is.
And it sounds like you're reallydoing it slowly, steadily, and
with lots of consideration and dedication.
So that's really, you know, something to appreciate.
(46:00):
So thank you so much, Sarah, foryour generosity.
It was really fabulous to listento you and to know more about
your experience, to follow you and to keep on following you
after the episode. So do you have any call outs
that you want to leave out therefor any of your projects?
(46:20):
This is the moment. And then we'll just say goodbye.
Thank you so much for having me.It's been such a pleasure to
talk to you. So we currently have an
exhibition called Only Your Name, which I mentioned early
on. It has three artists from
Vietnamese descent, Vicky Do, who is on clergy and Zhong Chun
Guiyen. It's on until the 12th of July,
(46:44):
so please come through. We open Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, 12 till 6. Also open by appointment.
Follow us on Instagram. So we'll be closed for August,
but we will be opening an onlinescreening room which is curated
by Florence, also Fitzgerald, and which is going to be
(47:07):
focusing on interspecies relationships, looking at work,
which are either documentation of performance or that include
performativity. So Flow is creating a really
exciting programme which is going to be going on for six
months, where each month an artist film is featured and
(47:29):
available online, which really is about extending the programme
outside the gallery walls. So, yeah, we can also sign up to
our newsletter to be able to getmore information on that.
Amazing. I already did and you should.
So thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you for doing this with
us. It was a great pleasure.
(47:51):
And you out there, I hope you'redoing very well.
Thank you for listening. Sign up for our newsletter as
well. Sign up for all newsletters.
I mean, you know, we put so much, so much love into those.
So do that as well for exhibition esters.
And I hope you're having a greattime and I'll be with you in two
weeks. Thank you so much.
Bye bye. Bye.
(48:12):
Thank you. All right, so as promised, I am
going to read an excerpt of the text written by Bexwade for art
review for the current issue, Summer 2025.
I encourage you to get your hands on it so that you can read
the whole text. So I am going to read the last
(48:35):
part of the text a little bit further than the middle.
So here goes, Becks Wade for artreview.
There's a difference between being visible and being
witnessed, A distinction I return to often in my work.
(48:56):
Documentary photography, at its most human, isn't just about
observation, it's about responsibility.
It doesn't just look, it listens.
It stays. It becomes a kind of testimony
not shaped by spectacle but by solidarity, by trust, and by the
(49:17):
ethics of presence. Visibility may bring exposure,
but exposure isn't empathy. To be visible is to be seen.
To be witnessed is to be felt. I've often said visibility does
not equal safety, and I believe that now more than ever, my
(49:39):
photographs aren't always made as declarations for the outside
world, even if they're sometimesreceived that way.
They're often gestures inward. I photograph from within the
queer and trans community. As someone who shares the
spaces, who has danced the nights, and who now marches the
protests and prides. I carry their same fears.
(50:03):
It's why I speak not of capturing moments, but of
creating them together. Every image is built on trust,
on shared understanding, on consent.
And that consent is all-encompassing.
It's at the heart of my work because I ask whether someone is
(50:25):
alone in a crowd or up a tree, as happened recently at a trans
protest I was documenting for British Vogue.
Our community is so often treated as if we don't deserve
autonomy in how we're acted towards, spoken about or
legislated upon. That truth was laid bare by the
(50:47):
Supreme Court's ruling, which passed judgement on trans lives
without hearing a single trans voice.
It's a pattern. We are debated, defined,
regulated, but rarely asked whatwe need, how we want to live or
how we seek to be protected. My work insists that trans and
(51:09):
queer people have the right to decide how they are seen,
whether they are seen at all. I've always thought of my
photographs as a living archive,not static records, but moments
full of breath and contradiction.
They say we will not be legislated out of public life,
(51:31):
nor erased from public memory. In moments like this, when the
law fails us, when public discourse turns cold, art can
become a shelter, not one of retreat but of resistance, a
space where we write ourselves back into history, where we care
(51:51):
for each other in public, where we refuse the terms we've been
given. But still there is joy.
Still there is that image in thenightclub bathroom.
Still there are people protesting from treetops.
Still there is a dance floor. Still we persist, not despite
our complexity, but because of it.
(52:13):
I don't take photos to prove we exist.
I take them because we do. These were the words of Beck's
Wade for Art review. Bex Wade is a photographer based
in the UK and it has been my honor to share their words with
you. Thank you so much for being
(52:36):
here, for allowing me to be in your eardrums, and I hope that
in the following two weeks untilthe next episode, you will be
out there in the world, fabulous, having fun, having
respect for yourself and for others and being great.
Thank you so much to those who made this episode possible.
(53:00):
Shout out to Vita Hebb who assisted me in this episode,
particularly in the edition. So if you're on Spotify or
YouTube and if you want to have a look at the images and the
works we talk about, you can always go back and revisit the
video. You can go to our Instagram
(53:20):
account where we also have images of the works we mention.
You can also follow SLQS on Instagram.
You can follow us Exhibition Esters, under score podcasts.
So that's it. This is the end of the episode.
Take care, have a good one. Exhibition Esters is an indie
(53:45):
podcast with its perks and its productive challenges, but I'm
very thankful to be in your eardrums or somewhere in your
screens. Don't forget to support
independent content. Give us a nice rating, subscribe
to the newsletter, and if you can, click on the show's notes
or go to our website and buy us a latte.
(54:05):
Thank you for being here, thank you for supporting us, thank you
for listening. Have a good one.
I'm Joanna Pyroneves, your host,and this is exhibitionist this
I'm an independent writer and curator with a wide-ranging 2
decades career in contemporary art, from commercial galleries
to art fairs, from research to curating, from Lisbon to London
(00:26):
through Paris. But when I'm asked what I do
outside the out world, the inevitable reaction is, oh, I
don't know anything about contemporary art.
Ouch. So call it a midlife crisis,
call it arrogance, but I gave myself the task of trying to
fill that gap with Co host conversation.
(00:47):
Episodes centered around a genuine exchange of thoughts,
feelings and precious context around solo exhibitions,
interviews and special episodes based on a particular topic to
keep you alert and on your toes.If you want to read further into
some of the topics discussed in the episodes and more, you can
(01:11):
also find me on Sub Stack under my name, Joanna Pyroneves.
Hi there, a few notes on the episode you're about to listen
to. So I'm interviewing Sarah Lacung
Sung because to my knowledge shehas the only commercial gallery
(01:33):
dedicated to showcasing and promoting art produced by women
and queer artists in the UK. So the gallery is called SLQS
and is based or is located in Shoreditch in London.
So when I mention the artist BexWade and the acquisition of
(01:56):
their work by the VNA. So Bex Wade had an exhibition
right before the current one at SLQSI say that Bex Wade was the
first non binary artist in the collection which is not correct.
So when you get to that point ofthe introduction, remember that
Bex Wade is a trans non binary artists.
(02:19):
And in the words of Zorian Clayton, another of Bex's
photographs purchased with art font support, has recently gone
on display at Young Vienna in Bethnal Green.
This is believed to be the firsttime an out trans artist work
has gone on display in a permanent gallery at the VNA End
(02:43):
of Quotes. So this is to celebrate.
And Zorian Clayton was the curator responsible for this
acquisition. So it is important to set the
record straight, straight and also to be joyful and to
celebrate this state of affairs at the VNA and in the permanent
gallery. But it's also important, I
(03:08):
think, to acknowledge the current climate of erasure of
trans rights and the narrowing of notions of gender.
And so I thought of reading an excerpt of a text Wade wrote for
the summer edition of Art Review, and available in its
entirety there. So as Sarah mentions eloquently
(03:31):
in the interview, we are indeed living at a time where trans and
queer communities are being failed and where gender is being
reduced on a legislative level. So reading a part of Bexwade's
text is to put it out there. It's my voice, but it's their
(03:51):
experience. So stick around for the
interview with Sarah and her fascinating trajectory, and then
to listen to Bexwade's words after the interview.
Without further ado, let's do this.
And thank you for being here. So far, the highest ranking
(04:17):
episodes of the first season andthe last season of exhibition
Isters are Philip Guston, Gerhard Heshta, followed by
Marina Abramovic, Dido Mariama, Tanya Kovacs, Yoko Ono, Judy
Chicago and Aria Dean. I would have put my money on
Abramovich, Yoko Ono and Judy Chicago being the most listened
(04:39):
to, especially because they've had so much press coverage and
two of them are two big stars. But oh and also I'm a female
host so I thought you know, morefemales listen to females, but
no. And you'll be surprised to know
that the majority of listeners to the Abramovich episode are
(04:59):
male. So I can tell you exactly the
percentage. It's 62.5% and 37.5 are female.
And there are non no non binary listeners.
So this is really interesting because in the 8 ones.
So if you don't look at ranking,there's five women and three
men. But what's interesting as well
(05:21):
is in the 12 episodes, we have more women than men.
So that kind of reflects the program as well.
And of course, this is anecdotal.
We all know that to have a real statistical data, you need far
more examples and you need far more numbers.
(05:41):
But it's still interesting. It's just one season, it's just
one experience. But it's interesting to know
that Abramovich coming in 3rd place is really telling because
she's a second generation. She's in the second generation
of feminism, which is a very typical generation of saying, as
(06:02):
she has said that had she had children, she wouldn't have
gotten where she did. Of course she tracked back.
She kind of course corrected on that one.
But it's true that if you think back in and and look at the
artists who made it from that generation, a lot of them had to
kind of what the third generation of feminists have
(06:25):
sort of read into their attitudes.
They kind of went against notions of the female gender.
So for example, being mums was aquestion counterexample Mary
Kelly that we may talk about. So the reason why I'm mentioning
these analytic results and thesevery questionable readings, of
(06:48):
course, I'm very conscious of that is because today I have a
special guest. So this is an interview episode.
A new star in the constellation of London galleries, Sarah
Lekong Sung, who has establishedthe gallery in Shoreditch last
year called SLQS and which champions female, queer or non
(07:09):
binary artists. I was intrigued as soon as the
gallery popped up on my exhibitionist's Instagram feed.
So the reason why my curiosity was peaked further is precisely
because Sarah doesn't have your usual career path of art
history, culture management, working at Sotheby's or
(07:30):
Christie's, then working in commercial galleries and
eventually opening your own gallery.
Which by the way, not many people take that step.
So, you know, dear listeners whoare students, build your own
career path. There's a lot of stuff out there
to do. You can be an art advisor.
You can work for funding in big institutions or small ones,
nonprofits. You can do lots of things.
(07:52):
And Sarah did precisely that. So I decided to invite her
because I thought, OK, I'm really interested.
I want to know how exactly she came.
She arrived at Shoreditch. Who was this person?
I thought, and you know, I won'tknow who she is at the end of
the episode, but a dear listener, I think we're going to
really love listening to what she has to say.
(08:14):
So Sarah is Franco, Vietnamese. She had a multicultural
upbringing. She lived in many places amongst
which Cameroon, UK, France. She studied acting in Paris and
then she came to the UK, to Manchester where she studied
international fine, international business, finance
(08:36):
and economics and then she movedto Dubai where she lived for
eight years and she earned a living in real estate while
taking a keen interest in experimental theatre of all
things. She was Co founder of one of the
city's first experimental theatre companies.
(08:57):
But in her mid 30s with a 2 yearold child, she returned to
London for an MA in Performance at Goldsmiths in 2016.
She then became Co director of the charity Procreate Project,
which promotes artist mothers, and through which she curated
the first Mother Art Prize and Oxytocin Birthing the World
(09:21):
Exhibition program. And I'm quoting her here.
She said becoming a mother changed everything.
My schedule, my mobility, my decisions.
Speaking with the Art Newspaper,Le Kangsang said that starting
the gallery brings together the two parallel strands of her
career, a career as an artist and in business.
(09:45):
The gallery was launched on International Women's Day.
Interviewed by Melanie Girlis for the Financial Times, she
described her venture as a long game.
So far the gallery has showcasedthe work of Bex Wait, a non
binary artist whose work has been acquired by the VNA, which
turned them into the first non binary artist in the collection.
(10:08):
Diana Gravina, Poly Penrose, Ingrid Berton, one Mia
Wilkinson, Kate Williams and currently so the current
exhibition, Vietnamese artists Vicky Do Ho Dang Clergy and
Duong Thai Otui Nguyen. I apologise for the
mispronunciation of the names, surely.
(10:30):
So, Sarah, welcome to the podcast.
I'm really, really happy to havethis conversation with you.
Thank you so much. What a power introduction you've
given me. I'm really flattered and really,
really honoured to be on your podcast.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
It's a pleasure because I did goto the gallery.
We had a sort of a meeting and I, we spoke for about an hour
(10:54):
and I just remember leaving the gallery and thinking, well, that
was not enough to answer the question, was this woman?
Why? How did she come here?
But it really, really kind of sparked even more interest.
So I'm going to ask you the first question.
So this is exhibition esters. I'm always interested in knowing
where was your first connection to visual arts?
(11:17):
How did it start? Was it in the family?
Was it later in life? I must have been 8 and my
parents took, took me to the Dali Museum in Girona, in
Figueres. And so, you know, Salvador Dali,
basically there was this municipal theatre that was
(11:40):
destroyed during the Civic War, the Spanish Civic War, civil
war, sorry. And he renovated this theatre.
But the whole, I mean, you know,the whole place is a work of art
and it's a surrealist work of art.
And I went back actually a few years ago because I was just so
struck by this memory. There is a car outside where you
(12:04):
have to feed with people inside and you have to feed it a coin.
And when a coin drops, rain starts raining inside a car.
And I wish I just remember beingtotally mesmerized by this
impossibility of raining inside and how performative I think,
(12:26):
how performative I think I've, you know, my interest in art has
always been through performance.But I think, yeah, the taste for
experimental also came from whenI was 9, my family moved to West
Africa. We moved to Gabon for three
years, and then we moved to Cameroon.
And I was immersed again, you know, thanks to my mother.
(12:50):
She was a cultural journalist and she was fascinated and a
huge supporter of the local art scenes.
So she really introduced me to, I think what I remember is
really being immersed in music, you know, by key African
musicians, you know, like Manu Dibango, Salif Klater, Angelique
(13:14):
de Geoff and Benam. You know, this is also very much
part of my childhood. So quite a classical training,
but then also something, you know, very different.
Being immersed into the culturalrichness the West Africa was
also very pivotal in my understanding of the arts.
Is there an exhibition that you can think of when you finally
(13:38):
came to visual arts that sort ofmade the cut for you, that kind
of like really showed you something new or made you decide
that visual art was really whereyou wanted to go because you
also have a practice as an artist.
So that probably was a shift there.
I presuming it was an exhibitionbut might not have been.
(13:59):
It was my experience creating anexhibition with visual artist
that really widened my perspective.
I went back to study at Goldsmiths and I studied
performance making. At the time I had a 2 year old
and then in my second year I wasalso pregnant with my second
child and I was really looking for other artists who were
(14:26):
mothers or carers at the time. Being a mother was a was a huge
part of my identity. I think I probably felt that my
identity was almost reduced to my mothering responsibilities.
So there's a brilliant library, the Women's Art Library in
(14:46):
Goldsmiths. And Althea who who runs the
library, Althea Grenham, spoke to me about Procreate Project.
And Diana Grovina, she's the founding director of this
organization called Procreate Project, which is a non profit
space that really supports artists for our mothers and
carers through several initiatives.
(15:08):
And when I met her, she had the Mother Mother House studios,
which were artist studios with integrated childcare.
She was piloting this new concept, but we were we we also
started working together on thissymposium, which was oxytocin
birthing the world. But what really transitioned me
(15:31):
from performances to the visual art is when she asked me to
create the first Mother Art Prize.
And that was really looking. You know, we had an open call.
It was on the theme of leftovers.
You know what are are your leftovers creatively in terms of
your sexuality, in terms of youridentity when you are mothering,
(15:52):
you know what is left unused. Can leftovers be used for your
creativity? There was a winner which was
Mary Martin who won for her filmThe Divide.
So I think working and creating this exhibition with 22 artists
that I mean, except for Mary Martin's film, were very
(16:13):
different to theatre, Very, verydifferent to performance.
You know, we had sculpture, drawing, photography,
installations, mixed media installations.
That really opened up for me a different world because the
theatre world is very separate Iguess to the visual art world.
(16:36):
Performance is striding in between rejecting theatres.
I guess my experience was like, you know, going to Goldsmiths
for two years with like performance.
Live art is essentially rejecting some of the tropes of
performance. It's not acted.
It's very much a lived experience.
(16:56):
And then creating this exhibition really widen even
more my perspective into visual art.
And so in terms of your experience of being of being a
mother and being at Goldsmith's,I'm really interested also if
this experience has had an impact on how you see the art
(17:20):
world as a professional structure.
So like a set of unwritten rulesand behaviours that are very
much there, but there aren't spelled out as such, if I may
say. So like it's a life that is not
very conducive to be to having afamily.
So did you think about that as well?
And how does that entail then setting up a gallery and in your
(17:45):
gallery do you think about thoseaspects?
Yes, totally. I mean you know, when I was at
Goldsmiths I used to live in in Bethnal Green and Goldsmiths is
was an hour away from, you know,door to door really.
It took me an hour to get to NewCross.
I had a 2 year old child that was between a Charmander, a
(18:09):
nurse, you know, a nursery. I had a very different life to
the students who were in my course.
You know, they were all living in South London.
They were all hanging out after lectures.
I was just running back and forth.
I was running back and forth. I mean, I had a child that
didn't sleep. I was waking up at 5 trying to
(18:30):
catch up with some work. You know, it was a very
different experience. That's taking me back to so many
memories. That we'll probably try to
forget How. Difficult.
Having young children is, you know, I had access to two
(18:50):
residencies. I had, I did a weekend with the
live art development agency, which was I think the first
weekend I had spent without my child where I could focus
exclusively on thinking and sharing with other participants
(19:11):
in the residency. And then later on a few years
ago, again, I had the opportunity to do a five day
residency with UK new artists inLincoln.
Again, you know, being child free, being able to think, you
know, because it's very, I foundit was just really difficult to
even think or to even have time to think really clearly.
(19:37):
But you know, that's probably the maximum amount of time I
could really go on a residency. You know, I talked to other
artists who work in the gallery who have caring responsibilities
as well. You can't just disappear for one
month. You don't potentially have the
support system and maybe also you don't want to.
(19:57):
And then when I was thinking about opening the art gallery, I
mean, yes, of course, you know, I did think, oh, maybe I could
work in an art gallery for a while.
But I didn't think that was possible.
I didn't think, you know, I, I want to have a life which is
flexible. I want to be able to attend my
children's sports day and the five different Christmas events
(20:21):
that were put on by the schools.From a personal level, I wanted
to create an organization that can be flexible.
I also wanted to set up a gallery that would discuss, you
know, problematic definitions ofwhat is an emerging artist, what
is a mid caring mid career artist.
(20:47):
Can we remove these definitions?I'll remove date of birth for my
artist biographies. I don't think it's relevant.
I don't think it's relevant if you've done X amount of
exhibition by the time you're 30.
Have you been in an institution?I think we need to really
rethink these definitions and bemore inclusive by acknowledging
(21:10):
that people have got different career paths.
And if you are, you know, emerging or re emerging because
you emerge in your 20s and then you got busy in your 30s, maybe
you, you know, you're back fullyinto your artistic practice in
your 40s. You've got a life experience.
(21:31):
But I'm also working with, you know, artists who are younger
and who are asking themselves, what happens to my career if I
have a family, you know, can I work with a gallery that will
support this? You know, and I think these are
really important questions to think about and to have with
(21:52):
collectors. You know, I went to Milan for
Mega Art Fair in April and I wasquite surprised by a lot of
collectors asking me how old is this artist?
Because I want to support an emerging artist.
And really, you know, and I really had to to be like, all
right, hold on, let's stop, Let's let's discuss this.
Let's have a conversation. When you move to the market, as
(22:14):
you say, people have really specific expectations of what an
artistic career is. So what you're doing is very
interesting. And now I'm interested in
knowing how the collectors reacted to your spiel.
How did they receive your information?
I think, you know, you can plantseeds, but it will take time.
(22:37):
It will take time to have fundamental shifts in the
market. It will take time.
And I can't be doing this by myself, you know.
So I think it's also widening this conversation with
galleries. Institutions all demand all the
players within the market to really be able to create change.
(23:00):
So, you know, it's one conversation at a time.
I'm really curious as well, because when I saw your gallery
and I saw, you know, the very specific, specific mission you
gave it, I thought that's reallycourageous because we're living
in a very conservative time in the market.
People are looking at painting alot, really going back.
(23:21):
It's like the author, this is inliterature, Rachel Cusk said,
sometimes I look at the literature around me and the
and, and what's being read and talked about and it's as if
modernism had never happened. And I sometimes think it's as if
conceptualism, that's never happens at times, you know, when
I go to galleries, which great, you know, every, it was very
(23:42):
patriarchal. All movements in the 20th
century were very patriarchal. And I acknowledge that.
But it is true that looking at painting only can be really
conservative as well. And this probably not the
solution either. So I'm really interested in
knowing, you know, why you choseto open a a commercial gallery
in the current climate. So yes, I mean, I worked as an
(24:05):
artist and I work with nonprofits.
That also allowed me to see how much funding was disappearing
and was being removed and how political funding is as well.
So I think that was one of the reason why I set up a commercial
(24:27):
gallery. I decided to really specialized
and really championing women andqueer artists because, I mean,
there is plenty of data and statistics that shows you the
gender inequality in the market.You had, you know, the freelance
(24:47):
foundation that did several reports on the representation of
women in specifically in the UK.You had a book by Hetty Judah
which is on how to include, you know, artist parents and, and
and others, which is also a key publication in giving you
(25:08):
statistics as well. There needs to be more research
for career artists as well. And some of this research for
women artists has been removed as well and have stopped.
And that's worrying, you know, that is, you know, that is
worrying that we don't have, youknow, a lot of this research
stopped in 2022 and actually win2025.
(25:29):
And we don't have necessarily upto date statistics, but it's
very, very clear, you know, there is more women than men
entering art education. There is more men represented
and being shown and so earning as well a lot more.
(25:51):
But also in a political time where women and queer rights are
being revoked and in the commercial sector, there is not
that many galleries that say we support women and queer artists.
They might do it through the programming, but they don't say
it. And I think it's important to be
(26:12):
unapologetic about it and to saythis is what we're doing because
it's needed. Absolutely.
You know, my daughter just sent me on Instagram a post of a
young woman saying that recentlythe police has been allowed to
search women's medical history and home if they've had a
(26:37):
miscarriage. Right.
I mean. What does that mean?
And I was also thinking about, you know, lesbian couples who
have children. You know, there's two women in
there, male artists who are parents and who want to parent
fully, you know, with dedication.
(26:59):
Have you come across situations where there's different kinds of
families, where unconventional and non traditional notions of
family with children? Where and what's difficulties do
people face in those situations?You know, on the question of,
you know, non heteronormative families, I think the, I think
(27:23):
with, you know, gender, the importance is not to make a
decision on the behalf of someone else.
I think what we have to do is tobe open and to listen to
different experiences. So I'm not here to be able to
define who is a woman, who is queer.
(27:46):
That's not my role. My role is not to define people.
People have to define themselves.
My role is to create a space that feels inclusive.
And I think my role is to createa space where if you are, if you
don't fit the heteronormative oryou're not CIS gender, that you
(28:06):
can still be. You can still feel safe, and you
can still feel like this is a space for you.
That takes me to my question about identity, which you've
started talking about. So I don't know if you're
familiar with the this article that many people have been
talking about Dean Kissick's article, which was published in
(28:30):
Harper's Bazaar, about the fact that identity politics are
destroying art and are making uslook and curate bad art in
museums. I was wondering if you see any
pitfalls in this question of identity when it comes to the
market? Talking.
So you're talking about the painted protest, right?
By the article by Dean Kissick that was that was published.
(28:51):
Thank you for thank you for saying the title which I forgot.
Yeah, by a few months ago. It's an interesting article
because I think it's missing an important question, and I think
it's missing the question of whyare artists making work about
identity. So it's only looking at it from
(29:15):
a viewer's perspective and from this particular, you know, it's
pretty much from Dean's perspective really.
But you know, it's obviously it takes a lot of time for artists
to make work. It's a huge amount of time and
research and experimentation. So why are so many artists
making work about identity? I think this is the question
(29:38):
that we should be asking ourselves.
We have an exhibition that includes Vicki Doe.
It's called Only Your Name and it's about the migration journey
of the Vietnamese diaspora from Vietnam to Hong Kong and then
and then to the UK. It's a very peculiar story
because the Vietnamese diaspora,you know, essentially the reason
(30:00):
we have Vietnamese diaspora herein the UK is because Hong Kong
was a British colony. So that's very interesting to
think about. I was talking to Vicky.
She's based in Saigon. But you know, she said something
that interested me. She said I didn't make after
this film, she didn't make work for six years because she didn't
know what, she didn't know what was important to her anymore.
(30:26):
And I think, you know, if an artist is going to make work, is
going to dedicate so much time and effort into making work,
it's because they think it's important.
And there are some, I think, youknow, this is the question we
should be asking. So yes, OK, Dean is fed up with
(30:47):
seeing so many work about identity, but it's obviously
really important for these artists to be making work at
that time. Often I would say artists make
work because it interests them on a micro level.
So it might be based on a personal experience, but then
often, you know, artist will then widen their research onto a
(31:12):
macro level. And so it is a reflection of
society. And I think that in those times
that we are now where identities, you know, are
threatened, you know, trans people are threatened, queer
people are threatened, women's rights are threatened.
I don't think identity work necessarily about identity is
(31:34):
going to do to die down. I think there will be more of it
because maybe there will be lesswork about identity if if it
wasn't relevant anymore, you know.
But I also think it's interesting because in this
article, he obviously talks about, you know, the Venice
Banali last year on Foreigners Everywhere, which is very much a
(31:59):
retrospective of artists that have been marginalized.
This is a whole new Canon of history of art, which I want to
know about. I don't think this is, but it's
interesting to think about this retrospective and to think about
how we interpret the meaning of this artist now in our
(32:22):
contemporary context, when maybethe artist at the time wasn't
specifically making work about identity.
We see it now as about identity,but maybe that was not the main
goal, the main message. So the last exhibition we had
was a solo exhibition of Becks Wade, who's a trans non binary
(32:44):
photographer who is based in theUK but has documented the queer
community for 20 years. And we showed some of the
earliest work, which was early 2010, queer nightlife
photography. So you put it in the context of
Wendy's image were taken. This was on a personal level
(33:05):
when Bex was finding out about the own queer identity, but also
for the wider community. It was before same sex marriage
was legalized in the US. It was the beginning of the
Obama years, and it felt like a really joyous time, a time of
possibility, a time of change. It feels like a lifetime ago.
(33:29):
Right. So now you Fast forward 15 years
later, we have this exhibition, we have this incredible joyous
pictures, you know, photographs on our wall.
You know three of them, like as you mentioned in the
introduction, were acquired by the Vienna.
So they are of historical significance, a reflection of a
certain time. And, you know, the show opened a
(33:53):
week after, you know, the devastating, you know, Supreme
Court announcement of what the legal definition of a woman is,
which has been exclusive, excluding, you know, trans women
and, and the trans community. And which was decided without
(34:14):
discussion with the trans community, which was taking us
back to a point we were talking about earlier, which is making
decisions on behalf of others, you know, And suddenly these
images on the wall became reallypolitical.
There was one particular image, which is called New York Nights,
which was the person. It was taken at a lesbian night.
(34:37):
So a person, presumably, you know, a woman urinating in a
urinal. And, you know, when Becks talks
about making this image, they walked into the toilet.
They were like, oh, sorry. You know, the person was like,
no, great, take a photo. And you know, the way Becks
describe tried it, it was spontaneous, it was joyous, it
(34:57):
was performative, it was a collaboration.
And, you know, 15 years later, you look at it in a context when
we where all the media was obsessed about who's going to be
using which toilet. It almost became, you know,
there's a collector who acquiredit.
And you ask him about the marketand collectors and, you know,
collectors who acquired Beck's works, Yes.
(35:20):
Are collectors that want to support a trans artist.
There are obviously collectors who are, you know, want to see
queer images as part of the collection, want to include the
queer gaze in the collection. And you know, the collector who
(35:42):
bought this work said this is the image of the year.
There is no other image. And Art Review Commission begs
to write an article about this work, which will be published
soon. So I think there is, yes.
Why are artists making work and how is it being viewed in the
(36:02):
current context and defined eyesidentity?
That's fascinating because that's particular definition of
women. I was so taken aback by the fact
that it didn't focus on the trans community as a whole, but
it focused on trans women. And again, it's always that
(36:25):
stigmatization of femininity andthe reduction of the notion of
femininity. And I was writing the other day
about something, I mean, notionsof gender from the the the
beginning of the century. And I was rereading this text
where Freud was looking at his daughter and was thinking, oh,
women were aren't inventors. You know, women didn't invent
(36:46):
anything. They didn't have the minds for
that. And then he kind of took it back
because Anna Freud was at the loom and he thought himself OK,
Of course, they probably invented the loom because the
pubic hair is hiding their desire for a penis.
So this focus on the genitals ishere culturally so much such a
(37:11):
such a critical thinker for our communities and for our society
and for our culture. And at the same time such
terrifying writing about notionsof gender.
I was kind of thinking, So what can we do?
So do you, do you have any wordsto put out there in terms of
institutions? I think the VNA is a great
(37:33):
example. You know, I mean, when when this
acquisition took place with the VNA, they actually received some
money from Art Fund to diversifythe collection and to
specifically include a trans artist.
And I think that these pots of fundings are critical and
(37:56):
necessary for institutions to beable to acquire work.
We still need to do a lot of work into diversifying,
diversifying boards of institutions so they reflect
more, you know, our society and also the artistic landscape.
(38:23):
Well, who are the members of theartistic community more than the
artistic landscape? You do you mean the opinion
makers, the the people who have like power in those, like
decisional power in those institutions, Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. I think in terms of decisional
power, we need to have, you know, I mean, obviously the, you
(38:45):
know, the curator Zion Clayton, who was responsible for this
acquisition for Beckswaid, is part of making the queer and
trans community. And so we need more diverse
voices when it comes to institutions, not just, you
know, at the artist level, but at the curatorial level, but
(39:06):
also at the managing level and board of direct, you know, board
members of institutions that have got huge soft powers.
So we need diversity across across the board.
I think with, you know, the state of the public funding at
the moment, I think that privatecollectors have a huge role to
(39:30):
play and. Agreed.
Agreed on all. Yes, absolutely.
I mean, you know, it's interesting.
We had, I was part of the LondonGallery Weekend this weekend,
which is great. It's an event, you know, that
invites 125 galleries to participate and to put on events
(39:52):
all weekend. You know, we had an artist walk
through, we had a tour with Martin Clark at the gallery.
It was a real moment of activation, but it was also a
real moment of meeting institutions.
So London Gallery Weekend again has got funding to be able to
(40:13):
invite international curators. To come to London.
And so I met, you know, international curators in
countries where there is no public funding.
So I know we complain about our,you know, how much our public
funding is decreasing, but actually there are countries
that has, that has no art council or that has no public
(40:35):
funding at all. And there, you know, patronage,
private institutions, private collections have a big role in
making sure that all artists aresupported, making sure that all
genders are supported and tryingto rebalance that, you know,
(40:59):
gender inequality, which is in the market.
Can you unveil a little bit whatyou're thinking about in terms
of the future of the program of the gallery?
Yeah, sure. I mean, we, we have a solo
exhibition that's going to be inthe autumn with Damaris Athene,
who's actually the work that youcan see behind me.
(41:20):
Well, that's part of one of her series called Leighton Space.
And yes, I think I'm really looking forward to Damaris
because she's incredibly ambitious in her vision.
And this is going to be her first solo exhibition in a, you
know, in a commercial gallery. I've been following and I've
been part of her journey for a long time.
(41:41):
She was part of my first exhibition in a physical space
on Chondrit St. last June and then I showed her at the Women
Art Fair. I took her work in Mega, which
was incredibly well received andall placed within private
collections. So to be able to now be able to
say, right, well, we've done allthat journey and now you know,
(42:05):
you've got this space to do a solo exhibition is I think it's
it's yes, it's great collaborative process.
She creates incredible installation and sculptures made
of fabric and glass. And, you know, her research goes
(42:25):
incredibly in details and is about interspecies relationship,
specifically in the underwater world, trying to make us think
outside of bodies, trying to make of to make, trying to make
us view our body matter reality differently through, yeah,
intersection with other species,but also the digital.
(42:48):
So I'm really excited about that.
Again, I've got another solo show with Kate Williams, who was
part of the first exhibition here in February against an
incredible ambitious project. Kate creates large scale fabric
work and she's going to create aan installation in the gallery.
(43:10):
I can't tell you much more because I want to keep it.
It's so exciting. But yes, it's basically going to
be, I guess, an immersive space where the gallery floors,
ceilings, you know, will be she will create a cocoon
essentially. And she plays a lot with
perspective. I showed her work in, in, in
(43:31):
Mega in Milan, which was probably 1 of definitely the
favourites of the fair because she plays a lot with illusions
and perfect and perspective. And she, she describes her works
as delicious. She invites you to enter a
delicious illusion world, which yeah, is, is is exciting.
(43:53):
And obviously I'm also looking at art fairs in London and also
internationally. Are you thinking of representing
artists? Are you going to work in a in a
sort of a traditional model, or are you trying to reinvent the
model a little bit? No, I'm looking to represent
artists. I mean, so far I am working with
(44:15):
artists, which is flexible in a way where, you know, works are
consigned, but if there are other opportunities for artists
to show their work, opportunities are discussed.
And essentially I think that, you know, if you're an artist
entering the commercial art world, it's probably beneficial
for you to be working with different galleries.
(44:36):
It's beneficial for the galleries as well.
So I'm also working with, you know, collaborative models.
I'm taking Diana Taylor, one of the artists who was exhibiting
my first exhibition, to do a solo show in LA in July with
another gallery which opened recently as well called Don't
Look Project. So it's also about, you know,
(44:57):
what opportunities I can find internationally, which is not a
fair, which is a collaboration with other galleries.
I do want to represent artists and I will be representing
representing artists either by the end of this year or the
beginning of next year. That I think it's important to
(45:17):
take my time and for both me andthe artist to test the
relationships before engaging into representation.
And that is through doing RIP exhibition or doing solo
exhibition or art fairs togetherbefore fully committing to, you
(45:40):
know, representation. I think that that building a
relationship with the gallery isa very, very important aspect of
the work. It really is.
And it sounds like you're reallydoing it slowly, steadily, and
with lots of consideration and dedication.
So that's really, you know, something to appreciate.
(46:00):
So thank you so much, Sarah, foryour generosity.
It was really fabulous to listento you and to know more about
your experience, to follow you and to keep on following you
after the episode. So do you have any call outs
that you want to leave out therefor any of your projects?
(46:20):
This is the moment. And then we'll just say goodbye.
Thank you so much for having me.It's been such a pleasure to
talk to you. So we currently have an
exhibition called Only Your Name, which I mentioned early
on. It has three artists from
Vietnamese descent, Vicky Do, who is on clergy and Zhong Chun
Guiyen. It's on until the 12th of July,
(46:44):
so please come through. We open Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, 12 till 6. Also open by appointment.
Follow us on Instagram. So we'll be closed for August,
but we will be opening an onlinescreening room which is curated
by Florence, also Fitzgerald, and which is going to be
(47:07):
focusing on interspecies relationships, looking at work,
which are either documentation of performance or that include
performativity. So Flow is creating a really
exciting programme which is going to be going on for six
months, where each month an artist film is featured and
(47:29):
available online, which really is about extending the programme
outside the gallery walls. So, yeah, we can also sign up to
our newsletter to be able to getmore information on that.
Amazing. I already did and you should.
So thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you for doing this with
us. It was a great pleasure.
(47:51):
And you out there, I hope you'redoing very well.
Thank you for listening. Sign up for our newsletter as
well. Sign up for all newsletters.
I mean, you know, we put so much, so much love into those.
So do that as well for exhibition esters.
And I hope you're having a greattime and I'll be with you in two
weeks. Thank you so much.
Bye bye. Bye.
(48:12):
Thank you. All right, so as promised, I am
going to read an excerpt of the text written by Bexwade for art
review for the current issue, Summer 2025.
I encourage you to get your hands on it so that you can read
the whole text. So I am going to read the last
(48:35):
part of the text a little bit further than the middle.
So here goes, Becks Wade for artreview.
There's a difference between being visible and being
witnessed, A distinction I return to often in my work.
(48:56):
Documentary photography, at its most human, isn't just about
observation, it's about responsibility.
It doesn't just look, it listens.
It stays. It becomes a kind of testimony
not shaped by spectacle but by solidarity, by trust, and by the
(49:17):
ethics of presence. Visibility may bring exposure,
but exposure isn't empathy. To be visible is to be seen.
To be witnessed is to be felt. I've often said visibility does
not equal safety, and I believe that now more than ever, my
(49:39):
photographs aren't always made as declarations for the outside
world, even if they're sometimesreceived that way.
They're often gestures inward. I photograph from within the
queer and trans community. As someone who shares the
spaces, who has danced the nights, and who now marches the
protests and prides. I carry their same fears.
(50:03):
It's why I speak not of capturing moments, but of
creating them together. Every image is built on trust,
on shared understanding, on consent.
And that consent is all-encompassing.
It's at the heart of my work because I ask whether someone is
(50:25):
alone in a crowd or up a tree, as happened recently at a trans
protest I was documenting for British Vogue.
Our community is so often treated as if we don't deserve
autonomy in how we're acted towards, spoken about or
legislated upon. That truth was laid bare by the
(50:47):
Supreme Court's ruling, which passed judgement on trans lives
without hearing a single trans voice.
It's a pattern. We are debated, defined,
regulated, but rarely asked whatwe need, how we want to live or
how we seek to be protected. My work insists that trans and
(51:09):
queer people have the right to decide how they are seen,
whether they are seen at all. I've always thought of my
photographs as a living archive,not static records, but moments
full of breath and contradiction.
They say we will not be legislated out of public life,
(51:31):
nor erased from public memory. In moments like this, when the
law fails us, when public discourse turns cold, art can
become a shelter, not one of retreat but of resistance, a
space where we write ourselves back into history, where we care
(51:51):
for each other in public, where we refuse the terms we've been
given. But still there is joy.
Still there is that image in thenightclub bathroom.
Still there are people protesting from treetops.
Still there is a dance floor. Still we persist, not despite
our complexity, but because of it.
(52:13):
I don't take photos to prove we exist.
I take them because we do. These were the words of Beck's
Wade for Art review. Bex Wade is a photographer based
in the UK and it has been my honor to share their words with
you. Thank you so much for being
(52:36):
here, for allowing me to be in your eardrums, and I hope that
in the following two weeks untilthe next episode, you will be
out there in the world, fabulous, having fun, having
respect for yourself and for others and being great.
Thank you so much to those who made this episode possible.
(53:00):
Shout out to Vita Hebb who assisted me in this episode,
particularly in the edition. So if you're on Spotify or
YouTube and if you want to have a look at the images and the
works we talk about, you can always go back and revisit the
video. You can go to our Instagram
(53:20):
account where we also have images of the works we mention.
You can also follow SLQS on Instagram.
You can follow us Exhibition Esters, under score podcasts.
So that's it. This is the end of the episode.
Take care, have a good one. Exhibition Esters is an indie
(53:45):
podcast with its perks and its productive challenges, but I'm
very thankful to be in your eardrums or somewhere in your
screens. Don't forget to support
independent content. Give us a nice rating, subscribe
to the newsletter, and if you can, click on the show's notes
or go to our website and buy us a latte.
(54:05):
Thank you for being here, thank you for supporting us, thank you
for listening. Have a good one.
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