Commencement / Commandment

Commencement / Commandment is a group exhibition exploring the archive as a material, technological, speculative and personal structure. Taking Jacques Derrida’s Archive Fever as a point of departure, the exhibition considers how histories are preserved, interpreted and transformed, and how questions of access, memory and loss shape what enters the historical record.

Bringing together works by Gülce Tulçalı, Anastasia Belinskaya, Kika Sroka-Miller, syntheticduo and Harry Payne, the exhibition moves across sculpture, painting, photography, installation, interactive technology and sound. The artists approach archival processes through geological matter, digital infrastructures, fragmented imagery and personal memory, challenging the idea of the archive as a fixed or complete account of the past.

Presented at Prokofiev Studio, a space dedicated to preserving and reimagining the artistic legacy of the Prokofiev family, the exhibition also considers how historical material acquires new meanings through contemporary encounters. Rather than proposing a singular narrative, Commencement / Commandment examines the shifting relationships between preservation, interpretation and the construction of history.

Co-curated by Nathan Yeomans and Anzhela Popova

Participating artists Anastasia Belinskaya, Gülce Tulçalı, Kika Sroka-Miller, Syntheticduo (Anastasia Belinskaya and Polina Kravchenko) and Harry Payne.

Photography Anastasia Belinskaya.