Sleeve Shock

Sleeve Shock and Birth Sleeves? are two complementary exhibitions and talks events running in parallel from Monday 3rd until Sunday 16th October. (Frieze London 2022 runs from 12-16th October).

They are intended to provoke discussion around the human skin as a primary signifier of identity. The dialogue between the two shows will enable comparative views from different life phases, and evoke a trans-humanist perspective on identify conflict.

This is an open call for artists to take part in Sleeve Shock, which could provide an opportunity for artists from outside the capital to exhibit in the London art scene.

Birth Sleeves?

Taken from Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon, sleeves are the term used for bodies that serve as a receptacle for the human consciousness. The body an individual is born with is called their Birth Sleeve. 

A recurring theme in trans-humanist thinking is that one day we will be able to upload our human consciousness into some form of device which can then be relocated into a new body (re-sleeved), whether naturally born, modified or artificially created, as required or desired.

This exhibition, Birth Sleeves?, is a celebration of the opened sleeves of 7 people from across the diversity spectrum, aged 50+, whose skins have witnessed and recorded their lives in a myriad of ways, some through their own choice, some resulting from bio-technological intervention but mostly from the abrasion of engaging with life as they progress through it.

Sleeve Shock.

When an individual is re-sleeved they often experience a degree of sleeve shock. The more foreign the sleeve is in comparison to the individual’s birth sleeve, in terms of age, race, gender etc, the more intense the shock. Whilst we in 2022 are not living in the year of Altered Carbon, I feel this gives us a different perspective on aspects of identity conflict felt by so many of us.

This exhibition facilitates a conversation with artists who perhaps are experiencing a degree of sleeve shock as if they have been re-sleeved into something not quite compatible with who they are.

As we progress through the years, we come to terms with, we learn to ignore, we amend, we conceal or simply lose interest in the issues with our sleeves.

However these early career Artists are at the beginning of that process. Their work is raw and fresh and uses current techniques and media to confront, evade and wrestle with the sleeves they find themselves in.

We are looking for artists who can relate to this idea - as if they have been re-sleeved into something not quite compatible with who they are.