Exhibition – Marianna Simnett: Worst Gift

Matt’s Gallery is pleased to present Worst Gift, a new film installation by Marianna Simnett. Comprising video, liquid, light and sound, Worst Gift continues Simnett’s ongoing exploration of female subjectivity and bodily integrity as they relate to the power dynamics of the medical profession.

Worst Gift is set in an alternate world in which a voice surgeon (played by real-life surgeon and singer Dr Declan Costello) injects prepubescent boys with a substance to lower their voices. Shot in a Botox factory and theatrical surgery, the film follows a female protagonist (played by the artist) as she ventures on a mission to obtain the substance refused to her by the surgeon.

Soundtracked by Marianna Simnett, Lucinda Chua and Leo Chadburn, Worst Gift combines elements of fairy tales and musicals to create an unsettling sound world, at once invitingly familiar and acutely unnerving. Punctuated by worm-curses, love songs, and dream visions, Worst Gift charts a hallucinatory journey of transformation.

Needles are a central motif in Worst Gift. These ambiguous objects are desired and feared in equal measure; they evoke the violence of penetration and the possibility of healing, mosquito stings and surgeons’ cures. Worst Gift extends the needle motif into the physical space of the gallery. Arranged on the ceiling, hundreds of needles release drops of illuminated fluids in rhythmic counterpoint to the narrative unfolding on screen.

Worst Gift is a sequel to Simnett’s previous video work, The Needle and the Larynx (2016). In the earlier film, a surgeon injects the artist’s vocal cords with Botox. The physical changes the procedure brings (Simnett’s voice lowered in pitch as a result of the injection) triggers an exploration of infection, gender, perversion, desire, and illness. In Worst Gift, these themes are heightened and intensified. Simnett confronts the viewer with a fantastically strange yet viscerally affecting world.

Accompanying the exhibition will be a new whitebook, free to visitors and featuring a text by Charlie Fox.

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Marianna Simnett: Worst Gift6 | Sep 2017 – 22 Oct 2017

Matt’s Gallery | Unit 2, 65 Decima Street London SE1 4QR

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Matt’s Gallery

Matt’s Gallery exists to support artists with the space and time to take risks, test their limits and surprise even their own intentions. Unique exhibition space promoting emerging and established contemporary artists.

Matt’s Gallery new location in a warehouse in Bermondsey expands the number of arts spaces in the area since the gallery is within walking distance from the cluster of galleries established in Bermondsey street.

Closest Tube London Bridge (Jubilee Line) and Borough (Northern Line) Bus C10, 1, 42, 78, 188, 199, 343, 381, N1, N199, N381

Open Wednesday to Sundays from 2pm to 6pm during exhibitions

Access Matt’s Gallery is wheelchair accessible. All exhibition information is available in Large Print format. Parking is free for disabled badge holders

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