CCA Shows 2020 – Quincunx
15 June 2020 to 31 July 2020 | Public programme: 15–21 June
Online Project
In partnership with Team London Bridge
Quincunx is an artist-led cross disciplinary research project in which artist Rachel Pimm has collaborated with four other practitioners across disciplines – Lilah Fowler who weaves, composer HP Parmley, poet Daisy Lafarge, and chef and designer Peiran Gong – on an exploration of medicinal plants, sounds and breathing.
Starting with the figure of the herbalist or apothecary, project considers the interconnection of art, medicine, and plants via the number five and the quincunx pattern. Quincunx is a set of five objects arranged so that four are at the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth is at its centre – as the five on a dice – and is embodied in the motif of the lozenge from Thomas Browne’s 1658 text The Garden of Cyrus.
Originally planned as a project for some of the shared spaces of London Bridge, Covid-19 meant radically adapting to new conditions of communication, production, and site. In its current form the project stands as a Work-in-Progress. Audiences will be able to engage with research from the project – a positive series of exchanges between isolated individuals and a foundation for future work when possibilities emerge.
This project is one of the Royal College of Art Curating Contemporary Art Shows 2020. MA Curating Contemporary Art (CCA) graduating students will present five final projects in collaboration with leading UK based art organisations Gasworks, Furtherfield, Open School East, Nottingham Contemporary and Team London Bridge.
The CCA 2020 projects will also be part of RCA2020, launching 16 July.
Artist and Collaborators
Rachel Pimm with Lilah Fowler, Peiran Gong, Daisy Lafarge, HP Parmley
Designer
Curators
Junyao Chen, Jinghua Fan, Hetian Guo, Chao Liu, Costanza Simonini, Irina Sinenkaya, Si Shen, Jianan Wang