Friday Focus - Trembling Conversations with artist Leo Robinson
Friday Focus - Trembling Conversations with artist Leo Robinson
Date: Friday 11 October 2024
Time: 13:00 - 13:30
Venue: Online
Category: Public lectures, Hunterian
Speaker: Leo Robinson and Jelena Sofronijevic
Website: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/friday-focus-trembling-conversations-with-artist-leo-robinson-tickets-1026903655477
2023-24 Hunterian exhibition The Trembling Museum, co-curated with Professor Manthia Diawara and Dr Terri Geis, explored new relations between the African art objects in the Hunterian collection and contemporary art. At this online talk artist Leo Robinson whose work featured in the exhibition talks to curator and writer Jelena Sofronijevic to discuss new perspectives on the exhibition, and on the ideas of Martinican poet-thinker Édouard Glissant which were central to it. Glissant's concepts of 'relation', 'opacity' and 'trembling', developed through his own diasporic perspective on the modern world, have been influential in many contexts and across many forms of creative work.
Leo Robinson is an artist and musician based in Glasgow. Leo graduated from the Manchester School of Fine Arts in 2016. His artistic practice runs parallel to his explorations in spirituality, self-discovery and folklore. His work begins from meditations upon his own attachments and ideals, before questioning how they mirror the wider external human world. Recent exhibitions include DREAM-BRIDGE-OMNIGLYPH, London Mithraeum, Bloomberg SPACE, London (solo - 2024); Polymythologies, Tiwani Contemporary, London (group - 2024); On Exactitude, Indigo + Madder, London (solo - 2023); The Infinity Card, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales (2022);To the Edge of Time, KU Leuven, Belgium (2021); Theories of Cosmic Joy, Tiwani Contemporary, London (2019); Odd One Out/In (curated by Other Grounds Collective).
Jelena Sofronijevic (@empirelinespodcast) is a producer, curator, writer, and researcher based in London. Their curatorial projects include Invasion Ecology (2024) and EMPIRE LINES, a podcast which uncovers the unexpected flows of empires through art. They also produce historicity, a new series of audio walking tours exploring how cities got to be the way they are, recorded on location in London (2022) and Tokyo (2023), and works in print. Jelena’s full portfolio is available on their website and Instagram.
Jelena works at the intersections of cultural history, politics, and the arts, highlighting continuities over time, and seeks to make complex ideas accessible, not simple. Much of their research is focussed on pluralising representations of CESEE/diasporic communities and cultures, particularly from the Balkans and Yugoslavia. More widely, they seek to platform perspectives often marginalised or excluded from representation, especially in anti-colonial and environmental activism.
The Friday Focus talk programme features a different speaker each week, sharing a deeper insight into our exhibitions and collections, and work going on behind the scenes at The Hunterian. We hold the talks every Friday at 1pm online over Zoom. Talks are approximately 20 minutes long with time for questions afterwards.
Find out more about upcoming Friday Focus talks.