Come enter the Otherworld where the sights, sounds and smells take you on an immersive journey through your subconscious. Discover a place of refuge from institutional order, where the imagination can run free and where we can return to our primal selves. Let’s raise the spirits, they are ready to help raise ours…
Artist Jim Sanders, film-maker Iloobia, producer and sound designer Abraham Moughrabi, creative technologist Benedict Sheehan and performer Kt Simpson present ‘Raising the Spirits’, an immersive journey through your subconscious from the 1st of February to the 6th. Tickets available here:
About the work
This body of work is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’s dream-like, obsessively creative and utterly captivating. Collecting natural materials and making shrine-like experiences, Sander’s work is a cohesive cluster of wonder and intrigue. Combining print-making, painting and objects of memory, his work is spell-binding.
“This body of work is inspired by forests and a view through the trees of layer upon layer of overlapping vertical forms. The veils are created from large painted canvases covered with symbols and sacred geometry then chopped into strips and re-formed. They represent a journey into the subconscious and as with the woods, never appearing the same way more than once. Verticals as monoliths, the life force between earth and heaven and the original point of worship. Knotted string representing wishes and prayers, memories and fragments in time. The veil as a symbol of pre-enlightenment, to be experienced as a meditative aid, a gateway into the world beyond and a journey to discover the self. An immersive, sensory experience, where the viewer will enter a space enclosed by veils representing the forest of the unconscious. Participate in a Shamanic ritual for the senses of vision, sound and scent. Entering the Otherworld and taken on a journey to discover the self. A place of refuge from institutional order, full of mystery where the imagination and subconscious can run free, where we can return to our primal selves.”
Jim Sanders, Artist
Sanders is an “outsider in every sense of the word: his art, his philosophy, his life.” He is “one of the greatest unrecognised artists of a generation” (Emerging Artists, 2021.) Sanders’ work has a great affinity with Primitive, Outsider, or non Western Art, sharing their common concern with universal experiences of birth, love, sex, reproduction and death. By employing contemporary art methodologies, referencing a vast range of visual languages, and anthropological connections, he pulls the past into the present. Sanders makes comparisons between disparate social interactions across time in order to find and frame the essential questions of existence. He uses basic natural materials, discarded objects, a plethora of kitsch reliquaries and transforms them, restoring them to a strangely potent state of being. The resulting articulated sculptural objects are monumental, often taking the form of an altar or shrine. His work is often ritualistic, but at the same time, anarchic, non-conformist, disputing the religious readings of his iconic contents. Sanders’ work achieves a unified whole, but allows every element to retain its unique identity. With his distinct perceptive and practical skills, he liberates objects from their consignment to being reliquaries and through installations, sculpture, drawing, painting and collage, reconstructs them to give a powerful significance. Then, he hands them over to the viewer to invest with new meanings. Sanders has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and North America. It is fascinating the nature in which “although his work often appears ritualistic and religious, it is at the same time wonderfully anarchic and non-conformist in actually disputing the religious readings of his iconic contents” (Emerging Artists, 2021.)
Abraham Moughrabi, producer and sound designer
Moughrabi is a UK-based musician, producer and sound engineer working internationally in music, arts and media. His credits range from keyboards & sampler with dub-reggae group Resonators to composition/production with Latin-Grammy winning artist Buika.
Iloobia, film-maker
Tim Grabham (AKA iloobia) is an award winning film maker who has produced still and moving image work independently for 30 years. Comprising of short films, animation, photography and installations, as well as documentary and long-form features, his work has been presented internationally at festivals, cinemas and galleries.
Benedict Sheehan, creative technologist
Benedict Sheehan is a creative technologist. He develops imaginative ideas into working products and has an impressive portfolio. From creating a 3D interactive map for a shopping centre in Hong Kong to working alongside the Copperdollar Immersive Performance Company at Glastonbury, turning the crowd into digital dancing skeletons.
Kt Simpson, performer
Kt Simpson is a performer, artistic director and founder of Copperdollar Immersive Performance Company. She has been working internationally for the past 40 yrs in Circus, Cabaret and Street theatre. She has been collaborating with Jim Sanders and Benedict Sheehan on and off for the past 12 years, creating a show that became known as a top ten favourite things to do at Glastonbury Festival. Kt is the owner / director of Copperdollar Studios.
In order to get the full idea of this performance installation, you will have to come and see it for yourself. Click the link below to get your ticket.
