Sam Austen & Fani Parali at Sundy

Artists: Sam Austen, Fani Parali

Exhibition title: Sentient Summer

Venue: Sundy, London, UK

Date: June 4 – July 17, 2021

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Sundy, London

A night garden
Of scattered mutant pieces
Plants and creatures
Morphing out of themselves
Under moon light render

Sundy is pleased to present Sentient Summer, a two person exhibition by Sam Austen and Fani Parali. Sentient Summer explores themes around wildness, apocalypse, transformation and science fiction, using installation, sculpture and sound. This show is part of the ongoing exhibition series Lovers where artist couples are invited to exhibit their individual practices alongside each other at Sundy.

Austen and Parali’s collaboration is conceived as a night garden inhabited by plants, creatures and objects created by the artists. There is a strong sense of an alternative reality distinctly separate from what is going on outside of the walls of the exhibition space, turning one wall into a portal from which the inhabitants of the garden morph and shape-shift into others. Most of the creatures found in the garden are hybrids of some sort, plants turn into insects, planets turn into flowers, humans turn into plants, plants into animals. A soft and equalizing light envelopes the garden, stripping away hierarchies and harmonizing all beings.