No More (Cruel) Optimism brings an exchange between artists and researchers in the environmental and mental health fields in order to explore non-academic and decolonial ways of dealing with everyday anxiety and stress as a city dweller. The outcome of this is laid out in the group exhibition Between Here and There, Us. The project also invites you to join the programmed film screening, workshop, and performance between the 15th and 19th of February at SZN Gallery, 92 Brick Lane, E1 6RL. The group exhibition gathers female and minority artists and researchers, who worked together over several months to explore ideas of global connection, ways to navigate a city at your own pace, and how belonging and displacement can be a source of support system. These conversations are layered out in a collective curation of the exhibition and carefully unpicked through the artworks. To document the journey of the project and keep the conversations alive, there was a publication released in April 2023. It was launched at Tenderbooks in May 2023. More about No More (Cruel) Optimism publication here and here.
The project is possible with the support of the National Lottery Project Grant through the Arts Council England, Medochemie, and the generous help of SZN Gallery, FOLIUM Publishing, Sofia Bohdanowicz and Korallia Stergides. The project curator is Linda Zagidulina.
Installation view of Between Here and There, Us (photography by Rita Silva)
Public Programme