Steam Works

(Wanderscorde Woad Extractor)

Steam Works gallery in Wandsworth is curated by Kirsten Cooke and programmed by Kirsten and the director of WIP space (artist studio complex), Mark Nader.

Steam Works (Wanderscorde Woad Extractor) was launched in October (2023) with an exhibition by Dale Holmes, 'Welcome to Ratcatcher's Song and Dance Plague Band for Good Dogs' and is based in WIP space, an artist studios located in a converted Georgian listed building. The programme presents solo exhibitions by artists at different stages of their careers and supports intergenerational exchange, with a focus on queering and decolonising the gallery space alongside an interrogation of capitalism and class. It will also host group exhibitions each year, largely based around (but not exclusively) Kirsten’s curatorial research, 'Fluid Ground' and the potential to undertake a mapping from inside the exhibition environment directed by being immersed in water (as opposed to the Promethian aim of being above and manipulating the landscape). 

Steam Works is invitation only but do get know our network and ourselves by attending openings and visiting the space.

Steam Works is open on Thursdays and Fridays (12(noon) - 6pm), when Kirsten is based in the space, and by appointment, for the duration of exhibitions with openings scheduled on Thursday's from 6-9pm.

Introducing our curator Kirsten Cooke:

Cooke’s research explores the way in which curating mediates and stages how we ‘know’, looking at exhibition environments to explore the space of infrastructure and queer ecologies. Her practice situates curating alongside and in tension with artists through conversations that are rendered tangible in physical exhibition architectures. Recent exhibitions include Metabolic Markets (2021) and Snow Crash (2019). Metabolic Markets: A Dimensionally Diabolic Department, GIANT gallery (Bournemouth), activated the space of what was previously a Debenham’s department store to provide a destandardised encounter with art; reanimating the debris, such as mannequins, electrical shelving, and clothes racks, as modes of display. Snow Crash, IMT gallery (London), was built out of scaffolding materials to provide an infrastructure that could support as opposed to contain difference. Cooke is a lecturer at Goldsmiths and Birkbeck (UoL) and is launching a new body of research ‘Fluid Ground’ (2023 – ongoing).