San Mei Gallery is pleased to present the inaugural exhibition by London-based artist duo Titaness, including a new installation featuring sculpture, sound and performance.

Titaness is an artist duo comprised of Maria Joranko and Tiffany Wellington. Their collective interdisciplinary practice is shaped by their dual interests in memory, opacity, and love, explored through storytelling, sculpture, sound, and performance. Infusing their personal experiences and lineages with localised and diasporic viewpoints, they explore the potentialities of storytelling to weave alternate worlds.

At San Mei Gallery, Titaness presents a new sound and sculptural installation based on the legendary ballad of Tam Lin from the Scottish Borders, where the character of Tam Lin is rescued by their true love from the Queen of the Faeries. Titaness queers this traditional tale, drawing on folklore, oral histories and nightclub performance, to offer a mythic reimagining of the story of Tam Lin through a diasporic lens.

At the centre of the exhibition, a co-authored story emanates, in a multi-channel sound installation, from a series of sword-like sculptures, with each sword representing a character within Titaness’ narrative. The artists turn to the sword as symbolic objects of protection, which in the heraldic world of the mediaeval period were often treated as iconographic extensions of their bearer. Exploring the possibilities of queer collaboration, the installation imagines the means of protection and gathering through which queer lives might be spoken.

Love is a state of mind opens with a performance at the opening preview, starting at dusk (7.36pm BST) on Thursday 7 September. Free, booking recommended.

Playlist

Titaness have compiled a playlist in conjunction with the exhibition, expanding on its themes. Listen here.

Private view

San Mei Gallery is pleased to host a joint private view on Thursday 7th September from 6.30 - 8.30pm for Love is a state of mind in our main gallery space alongside Malcom Bradley in our window gallery. Drinks are kindly provided by Brixton Brewery.

There will be a performance from Titaness at the opening preview, starting at dusk (7.36pm BST) on Thursday 7 September. Free, booking recommended.