Exhibit P*: pigs, protest & performance

Firepit Art Gallery sits on the water in Greenwich, and when I arrive it is a beautiful but furiously windy evening. The water moves with it.

Exhibit P* brings together artwork by ten queer transdisciplinary artists - Amy Rose Edlyn, Dear Annie, Charlie Wood, Devika Bilimoria, Emilia Nurmukhamet, James Zatka-Haas, Jasmine Lasfar, Josie Alexandra, Tasnim Siddiqa Amin and Venus Raven - who engage with the themes of self-authorship, radical reimagining and resistance to systemic oppressions in their art.

This exhibition is an evolution of the live-art performance Exhibit P* by co-curator of the exhibition Amy-Rose Edlyn (Bold Mellon Collective) whose partner in curatorial crime is Josie Alexandra (Aeaea Studios), and, appropriately, inhabits ‘The Red Room’ at the gallery. It is full of fury and protest – a life-size model of a protestor stands in the centre of the exhibition, keffiyeh around their head surrounded by signs and flag, megaphone at the ready. A pig mask scowls, a gimp mask floats, the work is strung up with chains, metal piercing canvas. It is also full of possibility and fluidity, artists traversing form, expressing themselves in such different and distinct ways, defying definition.

It is a rare and lovely thing to see so much art that has come from, or documents, live performance. Edlyn’s own paintings created during Exhibit P*, and their paint-covered clothes, are exhibited. A compendium of ‘favourite gifts’ is available to flick through, collected from performances of Give or Take by Dear Annie and Emilia Nurmukhamet. Attendees of the exhibition are invited to write down their own favourite gift, to add to this live archive. Photos and costume from Devika Bilimoria’s show Offerings and stills and memorabilia from Tasnim Siddiqa Amin’s performance The Pigs Are Coming create a record of a live moment, solidify it.

I am also particularly drawn to two softer pieces by James Zakta-Haas in which figures emerge from backgrounds only a shade darker than them, like the boundary between person and world is broken somehow, as if the two have leaked together. James’ work explores his experience of disability and the process of deconstruction, of turning ghostly, which is mesmerising to fall into.

Venus Raven’s powerful photography series, which brings Christian dogma into conversation with kink, features another of my favourite images of the exhibition: a crucifix tastefully arranged through a harness, the red of the straps melting into surface beneath.

The exhibition is a reminder that art can be active, not just in terms of the form it takes but also in terms of the change it can demand. Exhibit P* invites you to join it on a journey already in progress, to walk with it, run with it, dance with it into a future we have to fight for together.

Exhibit P* is showing in 'The Red Room’ of Firepit Art Gallery from June 19th - July 5th 2025