30 September - 22 November 2026
Wednesday-Sunday, 12-6pm

PV Sunday 27 September, 2-5pm

Matt’s Gallery is pleased to announce Imogen Stidworthy’s forthcoming solo exhibition, a newly devised installation co-commissioned with Chapter, Cardiff. This is the second part of her two stage project initiated at Chapter in spring 2026 with In a thread of air.

What is at stake in being between ‘I’ and ‘we’? The installation engages with different forms of communication with self and others through a therapeutic group practice, Primary Work, developed by Swedish practitioner Iris Johannson. As a child Johansson had no sense of inner life or social connection. ‘I am not into feelings, you are into feelings, but I have to rely on my inner sight.’ Her practice is shaped by her autistic perception and lifelong sense of connection with ‘the primary’ dimension of existence, beyond conventional therapeutic or neurotypical frameworks.

Stidworthy filmed and participated in Primary Work sessions Between 2023-2026. From this she has created an installation in which built structures, sound, video projections and sculptural forms organise the gallery space into distinct but porous zones. A spatialised soundtrack is heard through airborne and embodied sound resonating through burn-out bronze casts, so that we listen with the whole body. The installation draws attention to signs of communication in the group in words, cries, bodies prone or in motion, and hint at what might be happening intangibly in the ‘communication field’ – changes of energy, exchange, connection, and psychic movements.

Accompanying the exhibition is a set of audio guides to the installation made by artists Immanuel Adelowo, Saja Altamimi, Louis Caseley, Vicki Hawkins, James Heath, Sonny Nwachukwu and Delson Weekes. The guides were developed through Radical Audio Guides, a co-creative project evolved through a series of workshops held at Matt’s Gallery with the artists over 2026. Unlike conventional audio guides which foreground expertise and verbal articulacy, they embrace the multitude of different ways of being embodied by the group. Each guide has been developed and voiced by the commentator in their own terms whether verbal or non-verbal. Through word, sound, gesture, mark-making and music, the guides offer visitors singular ways into the installation and bring different aspects of the work to awareness.

Radical Audio Guides is supported by Wandsworth Borough Council. It is a London Borough of Culture legacy project and was developed in partnership with ActionSpace and BLINK Dance Theatre. Thank you to National Lottery Players.

The exhibition is co-commissioned with Chapter, Cardiff and supported by Arts Council England, Freelands Foundation and Liverpool John Moores University.