April 2021

in English

Beth Collar’s Scatter Cushion is a “live” recording documenting a night-time pilgrimage to the fork in a road near the Domine Quo Vadis? church (also known as Santa Maria in Palmis) during the last curfew in Rome, where the artist lived after spending a few months on a residency. Parting the Roman Empire’s primary strategic road, the Via Appia Antica, and another, less legendary road the Via Ardeatina, the junction marks the spot where Jesus Christ appeared to Saint Peter as he made his way out of the city to escape persecution, prompting him to return and face his own martyrdom.

With a melancholic anticipation of absent bodies permeating her thoughts after a day-trip to the Etruscan site of the Necropolis Banditaccia, she counters the epic fabric of history and ideology-serving, gendered notions of the chronicler or bard with too-personal comment, fragmented memory, incidental noises, alcohol and urine. Collar layers a sense of bodily tangibility onto the ghostly absences of the eternal city.

Postproduction: Nadel Eins Studio Berlin

Beth Collar (*1984) is an artist based in Berlin. She thinks through sculpture and performance, making objects, drawings, and installations. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions and performances, amongst others at stadium, Berlin (2020); Camden Arts Centre, London (2020); Regatta 2, Düsseldorf (2020); Kunstverein Kesselhaus, Bamberg (2020); Matt’s Gallery at Dilston Grove, London (2019); 427, Riga (2019); Bärenzwinger, Berlin (2019); Waldo at Mathew Gallery, New York (2018); Primary, Nottingham (2018); Cell Project Space, London (2018); Standpoint, London (2017); ICA, London (2015) and Serpentine Galleries, London (2015).