Kids Take Over Pump House Art Gallery
In a new exhibition by German artist Pilvi Takala
Battersea Park's Pump House Gallery presents an exhibition building on The Committee, a 2013 project by artist Pilvi Takala.
For the project, Takala invited a group of children from a youth centre in Bow, London to spend her £7,000 Emdash Award winings in any way they wished.
The youngsters decided to design and produce a custom-made bouncy castle called “Five Star Bouncy House”, which could be used by them and hired out to raise funds for the youth centre. In Takala’s video that follows the process, the children explain how they decided to spend the prize money, discussing the process of decision-making and the values that guided them.
As part of the exhibition the “Five Star Bouncy House” will be erected on weekends when weather permits.
In her complex and rich practice Pilvi Takala confuses the space of exactly what the work is, whether a performance, a video, a sculpture or the space left behind after one of her interactions. Takala’s work sits between a serious investigation and playful agitation of social and political structures. Using disguise to engage and negotiate different social terrains, she reveals unspoken rules within systems of culture.
35-year-old Takala lives and works in Berlin. 2016 solo exhibitions include: Pilvi Takala, Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark; Pilvi Takala, CCA Glasgow, Scotland.
January 4, 2017