John Hansard Gallery is pleased to present Las Gemelas: Arrival (a lexicon of unmaking), an exhibition by Sonia Boué and Ashokkumar D Mistry.
On 23 May 1937, the SS Habana docked in Southampton with almost 4,000 Basque child refugees on board. The Special Collections at the University of Southampton now holds archives relating to this event, the biggest single influx of refugees in British history. The British government pursued a policy of ‘neutrality’ regarding the Spanish Civil War, but as the children took flight from the aerial bombardments of fascist forces in Spain the people of Southampton improvised their shelter. The children were subsequently billeted in colonies throughout the UK until it was deemed safe to return, though this was uncertain. Over two hundred Basque children settled permanently and lived out their adult lives on these shores. The archives represent material memory and can be experienced as a family collection –– a deeply personal account of history, while also being a communal record.
Las Gemelas (The Twins), the creative duo Sonia Boué and Ashokkumar D Mistry, have different relations to these archives: Boué’s father was himself a political exile from the Spanish Civil War, while Mistry’s family fled the tumult of the waning days of Empire. Sharing a heritage of forced migration, their collaboration has produced a series of contrasting parallel responses. Mistry unpicks preconceptions of history and storytelling with a multi-sensory promenade of experiences, while Boué seeks to mediate the exile experience by enacting a vigil of making. Counterpoints and springboards emerge where competing versions of truth and history coexist through the enrichment of their twinning. Concerned with human and historical dislocations, the duo present their lexicon of unmaking. The customary formality of an archive is upended to present audiences with living memory sites, on the one hand imbued with playful energy and on the other celebrating generosity and the labours of care.
Las Gemelas is an artistic collaboration between neurodivergent artists Sonia Boué and Ashokkumar D Mistry. Together they create art through conversation and valuing each other’s individual approaches. Mistry and Boué’s process is steeped in accessibility and challenges the art world to newly appreciate differences.
Las Gemelas use twinning to make artworks from two different perspectives, interpretations of realities and lived experiences. They invite the viewer to understand multiple versions of human stories beyond mainstream narratives. What emerges from their process are vivid expressions of introverted reflection and flamboyant extroversion.
John Hansard Gallery, Sonia Boué and Ashokkumar D Mistry would like to extend particular thanks to Archives and Special Collections at the University of Southampton Library.
Read the full Press Release here.
Biographies
Sonia Boué is an Oxford-based Anglo-Spanish neurodivergent artist. As a child, Boué’s family lived in political exile in England as a result of the Spanish Civil War. Her work is often an attempt to bridge a profound sense of displacement; feeling herself exiled both geographically and neurologically speaking. Through her practice she is able to locate a sense of self within wider histories and cultural contexts.
Ashokkumar D Mistry is a Leicester-based, neurodivergent multidisciplinary artist and writer. Mistry’s antifascist-centered research scrutinises individual difference to expand understanding to include impairment and disability as integral to the human condition. His work encourages close interaction and provokes debate. Mistry unsettles the mythology of national identity and reveals the ways in which symbols and images are encoded and naturalised. Archival images are embellished, remixed, edited and decontextualised to interrogate their latent ideologies.