Setting the Table: Village Politics

New exhibition opening today spans 16 years of collaborative rural artistic production

Galleries 5 and 6 at Whitechapel Gallery morph into a giant cabinet in this exhibition spanning 16 years of artistic thinking and production in over 30 locations all based outside of urban settings. From Ballykinlar, Ireland, to Ekumfi-Ekawfo, Ghana, international artist collective Myvillages explore the rural as a space for radical cultural practice in Setting the Tables: Village Politics. In times of deep social and political fracture, the exhibition reframed the countryside as an active space of cultural production, challenging preconceptions about the meaning of “rural” today, towards a new political imagination and a culture of radical solidarity and care.

Presenting a complex vision of the countryside that is distinctively experimental and artistically vital, this exhibition was part of Whitechapel Gallery’s programme dedicated to exploring the making of art outside of so-called cultural centres, culminating in a Rural Assembly in June 2019. This major conference is the outcome of two year long partnership research including Whitechape Gallery, University of Aberystwyth, Istanbul Biennial, Manchester Metropolitan University, Wysing Arts Centre and Myvillages.

The publication Documents of Contemporary Art: The Rural, edited by Kathrin Böhm and Wapke Feenstra from Myvillages, was published in the same season.

Thank you to Jane Scarth, Curator Public Programmes and Sofia Victorino, Director of Education and Public Programmes at Whitechapel Gallery at the time.