In the 1980s curator Sandra Drew staged a series of ground­breaking exhibitions in locations around Canterbury. Drew Gallery Projects supported artists in the early stages of their careers, often experimenting with ‘new media’ which didn’t resemble what was broadly accepted as sculpture at the time (video, objects, photography, installation, performance and text.) The development of the archive here at UCA brings together original and related works from these ambitious and impactful shows, telling the story of how these exhibitions came about and explores their incredible legacy.

Drew Gallery Projects’ archive, now gifted to and digitised by UCA, provides an invaluable resource for subsequent generations of students, artists, curators and academics. Accompanying the archive, exhibitions in Canterbury, Folkestone and London during 2018-19, along with a publication celebrating Sandra Drew’s visionary legacy will also form part of the archive. Opening up Sandra Drew’s revolutionary curatorial spirit during the 80s and 90s work to a whole new generation.

Additional support from Georgie Scott, Gallery Curator (Kent).

 

Gestures of Resistance aims to respond to our current general mood of political anxiety and alienation by opening up socio-political critique in order to resist the palpable feeling of disempowerment. Rather than accepting the non-choice of the neoliberal setup of Greece or current right-wing politics both in America and Europe, the artists of Gestures of Resistance reflect on the current state of our political condition, our current housing situation, the state of education and art, liberalism, diversity and pluralism in this moment of historical crisis, whereby the state of today seems to have strong links to the state of the past.

2017 is a meaningful year, in that it marks the 60th anniversary of the Sputnik Shock, a moment of great significance in the establishment of the Cold War which resulted for many people in a struggle for liberation, political freedom and individual identity. 2016 marked significant political events: on the 23rd June 17.4 million British citizens voted to leave the European Union, killing the UK’s membership of the biggest and most prosperous trading bloc in the world. On the 8th November 2016, Donald Trump was elected the American President and the Republicans retained the Control of Congress and Senate. 27 years earlier, on the night of the 8th November 1989, the Berlin Wall came down.