Davinia-Ann Robinson

'PRESENCE', 2019

PRESENCE takes the form of an exhibition and two day drop-in collaborative studio session held at Lewisham Arthouse. Women of Colour are invited into a restorative and discursive space to share their experiences of being rendered visible/invisible and present/absent. Participants will co-create artwork in response to the emotional impacts of these experiences by impressing parts of their bodies or written text onto pre-rolled beds of clay. Robinson aims to provide a supportive space for Women of Colour to explore, disrupt and reclaim ownership of their gendered and racialised bodies within adverse cultural, social and political terrains.

In the project space, Robinson is exhibiting new work inspired by the first iteration of the collaborative studio session, PRESENCE, held at the ICA London in September, and new written texts responding to her ‘conflicted emotions, educed in the encounters between identity and otherness’ as her raced and gendered body has navigated colonial spaces (Gail Lewis, 2017). The exhibition is open to all.

Davinia-Ann Robinson’s practice explores the cultural politics of emotions and their implications for Black Female bodies in colonial spaces. She also works in art education as a freelance artist at the South London Gallery and as this year’s artist in residence on their Supersmashers programme. She is the founding member of Narration Group, a collective for women and non-binary people of colour. Robinson is an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice grant recipient and a just completed a year’s residency at the Florence Trust.

PRESENCE is commissioned by Deptford X