Deborah-Joyce Holman. Spill I-III

Deborah-Joyce Holman works with video, installations sculpture with a focus on writing as part of the creative practice. The artist is interested in how language builds identity and they question issues around authorship. For the exhibition Spill I-III, the film has been shot almost entirely in Sicily and presented in a three-channel video. Through a free association of images on the screens (including lava rocks, flowing water and two mouths kissing), the viewer experiences a visual poem that draws on the theories of the poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant: a profound reflection on colonialism and slavery, but also a powerful vision of a world in which cultural diversity flourishes and the relationship between people and places, human and non-human beings, visible and invisible forces, air, water, fire and vegetation is constantly activated.

Deborah-Joyce Holman is a multidisciplinary artist based between London and Basel. In 2020-2022 they worked at East London arts organisation Auto Italia first as Associate Director then as Associate Curator. They were the founding director of 1.1, a platform for early-career practitioners in arts, music and text-based practices, with an exhibition space in Basel, which ran from 2015 to 2020. Deborah-Joyce has curated the 2018 and 2019 annual group exhibitions for the arts and music festival Les Urbaines, Lausanne, presenting newly commissioned works by over 15 international artists. Their work has been shown internationally, including exhibitions at schwarzescafé, Luma Westbau, Zurich (solo, 2022); Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2022); Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris (2022); The Shed, New York City (2021); 7th Athens Biennial (2021); La Quadriennale di Roma (2020); Material Art Fair, Mexico City (2020) among others.

Deborah-Joyce Holman’s video work is co-produced with Confort Moderne, Nottingham Contemporary and Shedhalle Zurich, on original proposition by Caroline Honorien. Some of the images have been directed by Tarek Lakhrissi. The sound production is realized in collaboration with Yantan Ministry.

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