The gleeful irony of concept meeting location gets a mega power-up before even a single painting is hung. ‘Sorry about the mess’, a group show featuring site-specific works by a coterie of writers and artists who are also mothers, takes place in a building that was previously employed by Meta.
How apt, that the reptilian sleep-at-your-desk, freeze-your-eggs-for-your-career’s-sake ethos of linear-thinking nu-corporatism be washed clean by the comforting familiarity of…mess.
Extract from press materials:
Sorry about the mess. The exhibition’s title invokes the words uttered by countless mothers when welcoming visitors into their homes: an apology designed to smooth the exposed edges of the struggle and intimacy of domestic life. But as visitors step into the sprawling, inhospitable office space formerly occupied by Meta, it becomes clear that this apology is insincere, a mockery of social expectation.
Ranging from sculpture to installation, painting and text, art spills across the tiled grey carpets, up and across the walls, and dangles from the ceiling. It is soft and inviting, cumbersome and awkward, bold and unapologetic.
Stationed throughout the exhibition space are welcoming places to pause and rest, as well as areas in which children are invited to play and create. These interactive sets, designed by Nefeli Sidiropoulou in collaboration with Babe Station, encourage us to become active participants in the space, rethinking how we move through and engage with art.
Exhibiting artists: Bea Bonafini, Flora Bradwell, Jo Dennis, Anna Frijstein, Ludovica Gioscia, Rosie Gibbens, Sophie Goodchild, Justine Hounam, Emily Moore, Chantal Powell, Rosie Reed, Holly Stevenson, Erika Trotzig
Exhibiting writers: Amy Acre, Kate Briggs, Anna Brook, Avni Doshi, Niamh Gordon, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Tamarin Norwood, Millie Walton, Naomi Wood
Sorry About the Mess runs from 7 to 30 March 2025, with an opening event for caregivers and
children on Sunday 9 March from 10am-12pm. The exhibition is otherwise open Thursday to Sunday, 12-6pm at 125 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8AD.
For more information about the exhibition and the accompanying programme of free workshops and talks, visit: Babestation
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
