HAPPENS

A. D. Crawforth, Minna Haukka, Emily Mulenga, Ellis Parkinson, Naomi Siderfin, A.L. Steiner

ASC Gallery, The Handbag Factory, 3 Loughborough Street, London SE11 5RB 01-18 November 2025Monday-Saturday 11.00-17.00Preview 31 October 18.00-21.00

HAPPENS links Vauxhall art-neighbours ASC and Beaconsfield, as both organisations celebrate 30 years of operation in South London.

HAPPENS celebrates Beaconsfield's longstanding methodology of co-creation and artistic experimentation with artists diverse in age and identity. The link with ASC is made explicit by exhibiting the personal work of Beaconsfield's founding artist-directors A. David Crawforth and Naomi Siderfin and their ASC studio- mate Minna Haukka, together with younger generation artists Emily Mulenga and Ellis Parkinson, and New York-based eco-feminist A.L. Steiner – all of whom extend commissions from Beaconsfield's anniversary programme Manifesto for Sustainable Experimentation. HAPPENS reflects Beaconsfield's commitment to a present moment that interrogates the notion of 'environment', drawing attention to constructions of identity.

For lead curator Naomi Siderfin, appropriating gallery space as an extension of pictorial space represents an ongoing engagement with the landscape tradition, and her architecturally inscribed text 'NOW' sets the context for others. A.L. Steiner's video 'To Chnge Evrythng' is an anguished cry from USA, as physical landscapes and civil liberties simultaneously erode.

With similar urgency, Ellis Parkinson's 'Universal Soldier' reflects on the toxic commercial relationship between world-leading arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin and clothing manufacturer Carhartt, with the figure of an unknown soldier-fashion-victim. Tapping into another side of youth culture, Emily Mulenga's pop song 'The Cure' commissioned for Beaconsfield's 30th anniversary celebrations is animated by a new video.

Minna Haukka extends her ongoing investigation into Beaconsfield's historic archive by chronologically carving the names of Beaconsfield projects into the wooden work bench that served as office desk since 1995 – as if to mark time, while Beaconsfield's paper-based and digital records are transferred to the national archive of Tate Britain. A. David Crawforth's intimate sound installation creates a sonic underbelly for the exhibition, permeating the space with an artificial organic presence.