// Opening: Monday, November 27th, 2006, 8.00 pm

// Duration: November 28th – December 3rd, 2006

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Cross-Poly-Nation

Exhibition with Nelson Crespo, Dan Davis, Yasoyo Miyake, Elina Vainio, Henna Vainio, Katsunobu Yaguchi

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Cross-pollination is related as the sharing or interchange of knowledge, ideas, etc., as for mutual enrichment; cross-fertilization. In an exhibition context it can serve as a creative ideal, a mutual beneficial group experience, where interplay between information modes fertilize the sum total. In this exhibition, the wordplay spin given ‘Cross-Poly-Nation’ modifies the fertile application to include an emphasis on duality, the self, and identity. The idea of cross-pollination in botany implies a group of plant species, to which their growth in a fixed shared environment is a blanketed positive. Cross-Poly-Nation as a plural artist exhibition provides for the transient nature of the contemporary nomadic artist, which does not necessitate each artist (singular) ‘species’ sharing the same environment to fertilize the whole, rather, it is the growth of the artist occurring in its ‘otherness’ which in its immanence gives ground and enriches the shared ideas of the sum total.

Katsunobu Yaguchi – (Japan 1978) – Yaguchi’s drawing to performances and satirical product design focus on his project "Corking Project” with his partner, ‘Mr. Corking’ who champions the esteemed notion of the miraculous use value of cork’s materiality. Both ‘Mr. Corking’ and Yaguchi use humour and sentiment to reflect on ideas of divisive value judgements made on material use and the poetic implications of contemporary cultural signifiers.

Elina Vainio – (Finland 1981) – Installation work has recently focused on the construct of self-mythologizing and its farcical nature at a once remove. Humour is a re-occurring method for the artist to develop strategies, which examine received artistic modality.

Nelson Crespo – (Germany 1975) – Crespo’s prints are based on games of fact/fiction. Seemingly banal, episodic visual material; objects, pictures, documents (memorabilia) question value - either personal or shared - of token remainders of life experience.

Dan Davis – (United States 1978) - Davis' painting and drawings are a result of a discrepancy between a desire for sincerity and a mode that assimilates, within his practice, the mechanisms of post-production. Although he takes themes and motifs from a corollary of sources including cinema, the internet, record covers, TV and rock songs, Davis seems to be anchored to the reflective dimensions of the

phantasmagoric universe of his own sensations.

Henna Vainio – (Finland 1981) Sculpture/Installation- Her work; a hybrid of sculpture, installation, and performance takes aim at art careerist machines. Her most recent project, “Short Term Let”, calculated the mean cubic metric space allotted to students of Chelsea College, London, necessitating building a ‘studio on wheels,’ rented out at a nominal fee, to a graduate student from St Martins School of Fashion for the duration of the exhibition.

Yasuyo Miyake – (Japan 1978) – Miyake’s photography usually manifests itself in the compilation of minimally scaled photo-books. Her most recent book of photo work titled, Berlin Map, is a discreet colourful visual traveller’s diary of Berlin, which is reflexive in its ‘outsider’ response to her transient experience of Berlin.