Join artist Jessie Tam in the gallery for a drawing workshop where we will explore drawing as a tool for storytelling and object transformation.
In the upcoming exhibition, [...] The Library is All of These, Jessie presents a series of drawings in which one object transforms into another. Together, we will follow this approach as a means of communication, using this drawing practice to (re)construct our own narratives that engage with themes of displacement, the loss of memories, and home.
We will reflect on what it means for something—a place, a memory, or an identity—to disappear, and investigate how drawing can serve as a powerful tool to reclaim and revive these things. By weaving personal narratives into our work, we challenge erasure and envision new ways to bring the invisible and forgotten into the present. During this workshop we will create two drawings. The first drawing will be based on finding our childhood voice, where correctness doesn't need to happen, and where we can hold onto a past memory, or a lost object. The second drawing will be a transformation of the first - speaking from the object or memory's inner voice. About Jessie:Jessie Tam(b. Hong Kong, 1993) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Manchester, UK. Extending beyond drawing, sculpture, site-specific installation, writing, and curation, her practice explores themes of memory, (be)longing, displacement, and the notion of ‘home’ against the backdrop of personal exile. Fragments—both physical and narrative—are her favoured means to craft delicate scenes that hint at domestic situations where found or discarded objects and subtle pictorial and graphic interventions evoke the affective dimensions embedded in the simplicity and fragility of everyday life as shaped by culturally diverse experiences. Her solo exhibitions include It Has to Be Apart/It Has to Be Alone (2023) at Aco Art Space, Hong Kong, and Be Friend OK? (2023) at Mirco Gallery, Air Gallery, Manchester. Her works regularly appear in group shows such as I Know It By Heart by nProjeckt, Hong Kong (2024), and I Don't Know How to Love You Teach Me to Love at Das Esszimmer, Bonn (2024). Exhibited across Europe and Hong Kong, her works have earned recognition through awards and grants, including the Cultural Exchange Grant from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (2024), Emerging Artist Grant (2022), and Amarte Fund (2022), Freelands Foundation Artists’ Bursaries (2024-25).. @jessie_tam_
