SOFT POWER: EKATERINA BAZHENOVA-YAMASAKI, VIVIENNE GRIFFIN, UMI ISHIHARA, CAMILLA SALVATORE AND SARA KABIRI & SHAHRAM SAADAT
Open 30 May - 1 July 2025
The first exhibition at STANDALONE, ’Soft Power’ features multidisciplinary Los Angeles, New York and London-based artists: Ekaterina Bazhenova-Yamasaki, Vivienne Griffin, Umi Ishihara, Camilla Salvatore and Sara Kabiri & Shahram Saadat. The group show both signals a new life for the space and is a vessel for the underlying themes of exile and emancipation across the artists’ works. As a DIY space for diverse forms of experimentation, the term ‘multidisciplinary’ continually expands - making real world possibilities via the local and digital scale for a much-needed new independent space in east London.
Specially commissioned for the show, Bazhenova-Yamasaki presented three sculptural new pieces. This body of work comprises six interrelated pieces: three photographic prints (Shiro, 2020, Lotus, 2018 and Room #207, 2016) and three glass ritual arrows (Shiva, 2025, Durga, 2025 and Duality, 2025). Together, these works investigate the intersection of symbolic archetypes, bodily subjectivity, and ritual materiality through a psychoanalytic lens.
The project is situated within a broader inquiry into the construction of meaning through embodied practices and the visual economy of personal mythologies. The inclusion of three glass ritual arrows extends the inquiry into sculptural and haptic domains. Glass as a medium is central to the conceptual architecture of the work: it is a material marked by paradox. Transparent yet reflective, sharp yet delicate, solid yet fragile. The arrows, hand fabricated are not conceived as functional weapons but as votive objects or talismanic instruments.
Together, the photographs and sculptural elements articulate a vocabulary of symbolic transformation and self-mythologisation. This practice positions itself within a lineage of contemporary art that seeks to reconcile the affective and the theoretical, the aesthetic and the ritualistic. The work ultimately proposes a space for visual contemplation and conceptual inquiry, one that privileges multiplicity, uncertainty, and transformation.
Vivienne Griffin's Max/MSP coded self-playing Cláirseach harp augmented with pewter, 3D printed resin and custom pick-ups, The New Note, is automated to perform continuously throughout the month with a machine-like programmed score, embodying the temporality of the exhibition space.
Japanese filmmaker and artist Umi ishihara's film, Gravity and Radiance (Exhibition version: 30 min, 2021) is an experimental documentary that follows a community in small Baptist church in Kitakyushu, Japan as they stage a ‘Passion Play’ interwoven with interviews in which they reflect on the redemption they have found in their own lives. Hailing from difficult backgrounds of crime, homelessness, abuse, and depression, all the parishioners have found salvation through an NPO. Inspired by French philosopher Simone Weil’s Gravity and Grace, the documentary explores themes of suffering and forgiveness, sorrow and joy.
For Soft Power, Italian filmmaker Camilla Salvatore presents Permanent Exile (15 min, 2020) - revealing the story of a young woman forced into the Witness Protection Program due to her family's criminal past with the Mafia. Her disembodied voice guides us on a profound journey of self-examination, uncovering her deepest thoughts, fears, and concerns. This film offers an intimate exploration of herself and the relationship with her loved ones, in an attempt to redefine a past marked by fear and isolation.
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