COS x Serpentine Nights 2019

Parks are a public space where nature, animals and humans can all come together and enjoy the feeling of serenity that parks have to offer. What if along with serenity, you get to also enjoy a public art exhibition? COS x Serpentine Park nights are giving an opportunity for appreciators of public art, parks, and performance to feel intrigued, provoked, and inspired.

For the seventh consecutive year in a row, Park Nights will hold their annual series of eight eventful nights every Friday from July 5th- September 27th. Combining different art mediums, from live performances in art, poetry, music, theatre, augmented reality and fashion. The exhibition will be held at Junya Ishigmai’s design of the Serpentine Pavilion. Each year, the Serpentine Pavilion becomes a platform for experimentation, and design projects by some of the world’s greatest architects. Being the fourth Japanese architect to be selected to design the pavilion, Ishigmai’s design is influenced by a “free-space” philosophy. Ishigmai’s design brings minimalism to a specific landscape, but designing it in a way which allows visitors to indulge in the celebration of creativity and imagination.

During the month and a half series of events, the COS x Serpentine Park Nights 2019 will have each artist present their work. Starting off with Brooklyn-based artist and writer Precious Okoyomon, Okoyomon is an artist and writer whose practice encompasses poetry and performance and examines a history of the criminalisation and radicalisation of light, darkness and the sun by destroying the idea of a pure form of poetry, literature and performance, and create a cross mutation of art. Okoyomon’s fully-booked play at Park Nights is titled The End of the World. The play’s storyline includes Okoyomon rescuing her characters from an old-fashioned mind set, where angels of light, the sun and death all have fallen to earth, and a reckoning is coming.

Another Park Nights noteworthy playwright and composer is Klein, who due to her collagist techniques and modern visions, became one of UK’s most fascinating producers and performers. Klein started off with writing poetry, before she began working in production. Klein assembles recordings of her own vocals and layer them with instrumentation and produce distinctive soundscape.

An American artist that works with audio, digital images videos, fabric, text but mostly known for her photography is Carrie Mae Weems. Weems has had work displayed in over 5o exhibitions in both the United States and abroad. Weems main focus of work is bring emphasis on issues that African Americans face today, including identity, sexuality, racism and politics.

Through cyborg theory, artist Shawanda Corbett uses her interdisciplinary practice to try to define what is a complete body and all the different cycles of a human’s life. Born in 1989, Corbett gives us an insight into her perspective as a woman of colour with a disability. Now perusing a doctoral degree in fine art at Oxford, Corbett presents Blackbird in Mississippi, a performance where the main character time travels to Mississippi, where music gives the protagonist a voice in her journey, which allowed her to find placement in displacement.

Other than performances every Friday, the COS x Serpentine Park Nights has also included a big family weekend event from June 29-30. The family friendly event allows children and parents to explore their creativity and imagination by having a weekend filled with workshops led by artists. The free-for-all event starts from 10am till 6pm, giving you enough time to explore different themes of art, poetry, activism and print.