Doubles

Doubles brings together objects and sculptural interventions that stretch across the last decade of Sahib’s practice, referencing public spaces and events local to Southall and the surrounding areas, where Sahib was raised. Some works evoke memories of former buildings and past encounters in neighbouring Walpole Park, and others explore the idea of a copy or replica in relation to performance, memory, deception, and perceived threat. Through a minimal set of gestures, the works quietly destabilise and unsettle the setting in which they are placed, posing questions around mimicry, marginalisation and queer desire to question who belongs, who is seen and heard in museums and civic spaces. The show includes Archive (2019), which presents narratives from the local area into the manor: a display of letters, newspaper clippings and other ephemera from the archive of Sahib’s uncle, a race equality campaigner during the 1980s in Southall. Another installation, Front (2017), is Sahib’s replica of a window from a public toilet that once stood in the park, now transposed to an interior room of the house. At night, Sahib’s roaming light installation, Liquid Gold (2016–ongoing), illuminates the roof lantern of the manor in bright yellow, turning the building into a beacon. In September, the installation is joined by another iteration of the work in a building of importance to Southall’s history of community action.

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10-16 Grape St, WC2H 8DY

London, NY