This space has been closed for something like 5 years...7 years

Artists

Natasha Brown

Francesco Felletti

194 The Broadway embodies potential. Closed for what feels like five, maybe seven years, it carries the traces of its past lives — a tailor’s shop, a corner store — and now serves as a gallery and artist residency space. Its future as an office and apartments block is on the horizon. In its dormancy, the site has been filled with speculation about its transformation. Like a suspended construction project, it remains, ready to become something new.

“As artists in residence here, we are curious about how this state of waiting might become visible. How does a place articulate its identity? And how do we, as artists and as neighbours, tune ourselves to listen?”

Exploring the role of artists in processes of urban regeneration, Natasha Brown and Francesco Felletti (Wiggle Room) used their residency at PAUSE/FRAME to question their own presence in the space, deliberately positioning themselves as a form of disruption. They have reimagined the gallery space as a behind-the-scenes preparation room for an imagined show. Through selected props, they expose the underlying processes and histories of the site, from its previous ownership to its potential futures. These props, intentionally rough and theatrical in nature, prefer simplicity over refinement.

Art is good — that’s the consensus if you ask around the neighbourhood: the Antoinette Hotel, the Wimbledon Leisure Centre, or next door at the YMCA. Art is good for the community. But who exactly constitutes this community? Is it defined by the council? By The Koppel Project? By those who attend private viewings? Or is it Natasha and Francesco, the artists themselves, who are not from Wimbledon?

Wiggle Room at PAUSE/FRAME

4th Nov 24 -> 11th Dec 24

Exhibition opens 12th December 2024

Broadway

Residency