Varvara Keidan Shavrova artist

RCA Research Biennale 2025 showcases PhD Research at the college through a 6-day exhibition and 3-day Symposium.

This event is dedicated to showcasing our doctoral researchers’ research, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and supporting the next generation of scholars. Held every two years, it’s an exciting opportunity for postgraduate researchers and supervisors to engage with and exhibit their research across a variety of disciplines.

Varvara Keidan Shavrova’s research by practice explores what flight represents today- by defining flying, lifting off, as well as fleeing, escaping. In her work she re-imagines what a subjectively emancipating, feminist, and politically deterritorialised mode of flight might look like, when dreamworlds of flight are reimagined and reclaimed through hapticity of textiles and fibre-based installations.

Varvara will be presenting her work in the Biennale Exhibition in the Hangar space and her research at the Biennale Symposium on 25th February at 12:10- Panel 1

Exhibition: 21–27 Feb 2025 (closed Sunday 23 Feb) 10.30am – 6.30pm daily

RCA Battersea
Hangar space, Studio Building
Howie Street
London SW11 4AN
Book your free exhibition ticket via link below
Symposium: 25, 26, 27 Feb 2025 11.00am – 8.00pm daily

Rausing Research & Innovation Building (Space 1, 2 & 3)
15 Parkgate Road
London SW11 4NL

Book your free symposium ticket via link below

Image:

Varvara Keidan Shavrova
The Blade
2024-2025
Hand-tufted Axminster wool, aluminium, steel.
170cm x 170cm x 70cm

https://www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/research-biennale/

https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/rca-research-biennale-2025/

RCA Research Biennale 2025 The RCA Research Biennale is a research event dedicated to showcasing our doctoral researchers' research, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and supporting the next generation of scholars.

RCA Research Biennale is here!
Running between 21-27 February - free entry, booking essential

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rca-research-biennale-exhibition-tickets-1113727201039?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios

This gallery exhibition centers on the textile installation by artist Varvara Keidan Shavrova, born in Soviet Russia and now living in England and Ireland. The installation features eight screen-printed felt blankets, each depicting images from her family photo album. This social and performative artwork invites interaction: visitors are encouraged to touch the blankets or drape them over their shoulders.
Juxtaposed with the artwork are historical objects from the Documentation Centre's collection, including a tablecloth from East Prussia, a bedspread from Bohemia, and a small table cover from Brandenburg.
Textiles such as blankets, tablecloths, handkerchiefs, traditional costumes, coats, cloaks, scarves, and throws are poignant witnesses to hardship and suffering. They serve as relics of loss and deprivation, embodying the deeply human desire to connect with warmth, familiarity, and family. These objects offer a sense of solace against the painful experiences of displacement, loneliness, and uprootedness.
Varvara Keidan Shavrova’s work speaks to these shared experiences of millions of refugees, displaced persons, and emigrants, resonating with their enduring stories.

Duration of this gallery-exhibition: 1 February 2025 – 16 November 2025

Vernissage & Conversation with Kathrin Becker, Artistic Director, KINDL Contemporary Art Centre Berlin:
1 February 2025 16:00-18:00

FREE ADMISSION: REGISTRATION REQUIRED FOR VERNISSAGE

https://www.flucht-vertreibung-versoehnung.de/en/veranstaltung/new-gallery-exhibition-opening-textile-memories

https://www.flucht-vertreibung-versoehnung.de/en/news/textile-memories

https://www.flucht-vertreibung-versoehnung.de/en/news/textile-memories

SFVV NewsTextile MemoriesMontag, 23. Dezember 2024This gallery exhibition centers on the textile installation by artist Varvara Keidan Shavrova, born in Soviet Russia and now living in England and Ireland. The installation features eight screen-printed felt blankets, each depicting images from her family...

https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/chasma/

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Earthwise Royal College of Art Research Exhibition featuring works by PhD and MRes researchers based at the RCA School of Arts & Humanities is featuring my 'Dare Mighty Things, once more....' parachute-like installation and a series of 'Soft Drones' artworks is continuing to July 1st , 2023 at Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall.

The exhibition is open daily 12-5pm. A fantastic hand-bound Earthwise research publication that includes every participant's contributions is available for a nominal voluntary contribution fee at the gallery.

Details here

My 'Dare Mighty Things, once more....' a performative parachute-like installation is placed within the atmospheric and moody Arches space at Beaconsfield gallery, presented as part of 'Earthwise', PGR SoAH RCA Phd and MRes research students exhibition and publication.

Exhibition is curated by Dr. Josephine Berry, Dr. Catherine Ferguson, Naomi Siderfin and David Caworth.

'Earthwise' publication is available at the gallery until stock lasts.

'Earthwise' is open to the public till July 1st, 2023.

Open daily 12-5pm at Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall.

From the Press Release:

'Beaconsfield hosts the PhD cohort at the Royal College of Arts’ School of Arts and Humanities to present an exhibition, event and publication series.

Earthwise invites a place of meetings and relations, without limit or system. A focus on the ‘and’ and not the ‘therefore … ‘ is driven by the gathering forces of ecological, social and psychological crises that pose an inescapable reality for artists today. The term ‘Earthwise’ is inspired by Donna Haraway and her incitement to ‘earthwide’ situated and relational forms of knowledge. Haraway’s word is mutated to orient away from the vertical towards the horizontal, away from the separated stance of the eye/mind towards the uncertain discoveries of planetary processes and corporeal practices.

Earthwise implies

A reorientation from the human
Listening not imposing
Enlivenment
Questioning vertical hierarchies
Working with technology not under it
Situatedness and solidarity networks
Owing not owning
Reciprocity
Creating commons
Intergenerational thinking
“Other planes of there”

The publications and exhibition have been composed through the interactions of five PhD seminar groups (Curatorial Thinking, Material Engagements, Entanglement, Planet, Out in the OPEN) at the Royal College of Art’s School of Arts and Humanities. In the spirit of Earthwise, the publication and exhibition have been generated through processes of exchange, action, making, discussing, studying, and responding, to produce creative work that is enactive and environmentally sensitive.

Through this work we have raised questions about the connections between aesthetic practices and climate breakdown. More specifically what role the arts, expression and the imagination may play in becoming sensitive to and even finding routes out of catastrophe.

We are interested in the necessity of confronting the darkness of our times, while holding onto the hopeful forces that affirm and renew creativity and therefore life.'

More information and directions here:

https://beaconsfield.ltd.uk/projects/earthwise/

Earthwise - Beaconsfield EARTHWISE Exhibition: 22 June - 1 July 2023 (Wednesday - Saturday) Beaconsfield hosts the PhD cohort at the Royal College of Arts’ School of Arts and Humanities to present an exhibition, event and publication series