← Back

Beyond Otherness is a ten-day public programme including an exhibition, workshops and performances at 571 Oxford Road Gallery, together with public-billboard art and a symposium in central Reading.

The project showcases the work of a diverse group of seven recently graduated or emerging artists based in Reading, London and Wolverhampton, whose work comes together to push beyond the boundaries of otherness.

The full programme for Beyond Otherness is now live! For more information about our ten-day programme and to book (free) tickets to attend events, workshops, and socials (in a Covid-safe manner) click here.

You can find the GoFundMe page for our project here.

Exhibition

Visitors to the gallery can expect to encounter painting, performance, sculpture, installation, video, publication and hands-on workshops led by the artists.

Informed by their various experiences as African, Black, POC, Muslim, Trans and Queer artists, the participants will curate and present work that pushes beyond ‘otherness’ and its externally-imposed expectations. Beyond Otherness looks at what it means to go further than our othered identities. We’re not limited to the boxes that we’re put into, but they are often central to the work - whether explicitly or implicitly. When your identity is politicised, how can we connect and move beyond otherness?

In addition to the exhibition at 571 Oxford Road Gallery, the artists will have work located at sites in Reading town centre, including billboards on Crown Street and Southampton Street and sculptures in the churchyard at Reading Minster, to introduce the work to audiences outside of the gallery space.

Opening Times

July 9 - July 18

11am - 6pm

You can book tickets for the exhibition here.

G.K. Field

G. K. Field is a queer non-binary artist living and working in Reading. Exploring the idea of ‘place’, landscapes that can be occupied by an imagined body. Incorporating painting, projections and performance. A drag alter ego Mister Frank occupies these imagined and inner landscapes in interdisciplinary performances.

Maryam Kazimi

Maryam Zahra Kazimi is a London-based interdisciplinary artist - radically political and apolitical, making work within the expanded field of drawing, at the intersection of installation, intervention, research-creation and socially engaged art.

Ollie Musson

Ollie Musson is a Sheffield born, queer/nonbinary artist in Reading. Influenced by drag and cabaret, they use film, sound and text to create surreal narratives of transformation through gender, health and trauma. Ollie uses DIY publishing as documentation/community resources, and through printmaking reclaims and queers traditional art methodologies.

Oren Shoesmith

Oren Shoesmith is an artist, writer and performer born in Cornwall, currently based in Reading. He uses text, sound, performative rites and sacred objects to explore abject masculinity, queer poetics and religious iconography. His writing indebtedly weaves around a wounded history as a way to understand violence, trauma and healing.

Nacheal Catnott

Nacheal Catnott is a British-Caribbean Artist and Documentary Filmmaker. Her practice embraces sculpture, film and performance, often incorporating the Yam as a symbol of afro-caribbean diaspora experience. She is founder of True Colour Collective, an arts platform aimed at supporting creative People of Colour.

Tomilola Olumide

Tomilola Olumide is a Nigerian Multidisciplinary Visual Artist based in the UK. Her practice is experimental and incorporates working between sculpture, digital, painting and performance mediums, where she transcends the realm between memory and projection to weave fragments from her personal histories inspired by her childhood in Lagos Nigeria.

Thirsika Jeyapalan

Thirsika Jeyapalan is a British Eelam Tamil artist based in London. Her practice revolves around her conflicting identities, referencing scenes from the Sri Lankan Civil War and being in the diaspora as a first-generation British-Eelam Tamil. She uses painting and film to reflect on memories from her last visit to the homeland, three years after the war ended.

Partners and Supporters

We are grateful for the financial and in-kind support we have received from Arts Council England, Reading Pride, Reading International, Reading Alliance for Cohesion and Racial Equality, Reading University, Reading Borough Council and Contemporary Visual Art Network (South East).

Where to find us

This event is at 571 Oxford Road, Reading. Public transport is available from Reading town center and Reading station if you are visiting from elsewhere.