Nour el Saleh  •  Tracey Emin  • Miranda Forrester  • Sarah Hardacre  • Claudette Johnson  • Whitney McVeigh • Sola Olulode •  Florence Sweeney • Nicola Tyson • Yang Xu

The House of St Barnabas presents a group show entitled ‘Am I asking for miracles here?’ as part of our cultural programme ‘The Era of Reclamation’. The programme explores the history of the House since the 17th century, which started with the exhibition ‘Black Boxes Don’t Lie’, an installation by the artist GAIKA exploring the building’s links to slavery.

‘Am I asking for miracles here’ unfolds Barnabas’ function as a womxn’s hostel since WWII, titled after a poem written by one of the womxn that lived in the House. Wide in the scope of disciplines, the show will also consist of drawings and textiles, referencing mediums used during art sessions. The womxn who passed through the doors of the House were often vulnerable, affected by circumstances of abuse, the disintegration of families, mental illness, and trauma. Parallel to these challenges, the House also formed a sense of sisterhood, celebration, and growth.

By allowing womxn to inhabit a space within which they dominated, struggled, and flourished, this exhibition will unearth their unexplored narratives through the contemporary perspectives of womxn.

The show confronts these enduring experiences and themes centred on their interior lives and the socio-political structures that have both endured and transformed over time. This exhibition includes artists that contemplate aspects of identity, memory, and ‘resilience’: questioning the expectation of womxn to be so and solely shouldering the burden of their circumstance, which was so often placed upon them.

We will be opening the show for non-member viewings following the proposed lifting of restrictions in July.

Please contact [email protected] for more information and viewings.

Left: Claudette Johnson, Afterbirth (1990), pastel on paper, 118 x 83cm. Image credit: Claudette Johnson and Hollybush Gardens