Sophie Seita's textile piece 'withwithwith' (2022) was included in Pretty Doomed, an unconventional art fair and exhibition presented by Ugly Duck & Queer Art Projects, which seeks to challenge the sustainability of the underground and queer art worlds, from October 12–15, offering a glimpse into the world of alternative art during Frieze week.

Pretty Doomed has emerged from the intricate interplay of various emotions: the feelings of doom, unsustainability, exhaustion, and financial constraint juxtaposed with the sensations of fabulousness, queerness, vitality, and alignment with our core values. Our aim is to scrutinise the sustainability of our art community, explore new economic possibilities, foster mutual support, and extend an invitation to audiences, collectors, and friends to discover artists and their works, potentially making acquisitions. Pretty Doomed features a group exhibition where each artwork is on sale and a three-day program of performances, artist talks, discussions, conversations, and film screenings. The exhibition will be set across four different spaces giving the audience the rare opportunity to discover all floors of Ugly Duck’s former Victorian factory.

Ugly Duck is one of the few independent art venues that showcases queer and alternative art in London. Artist-led Queer Art Projects has the only online art gallery dedicated solely to queer art: qap.digital.

For Pretty Doomed, Ugly Duck and Queer Art Projects collaborated with VSSL, Kawai Agency, ]performance s p a c e [, Care-fuffle Working Group, qap.digital, and independent artists and collectives.

Participating artists are

Niya B, Mustafa Boğa, Nicky Broekhuysen, Elija Grybe, Nilbar Güreş, Chris Hawkes, Şafak Şule Kemancı, Tina Kohlmann, Adam Moore, Katarzyna Perlak, Alicia Radage, Sophie Seita, Victoria Suvoroff, Erdem Taşdelen, Funa Ye, ]performance s p a c e [ archive (keioui keijaun thomas, Bean), Benjamin Sebastian, Özlem Ünlü, Youngsook Choi, Tuna Erdem, Istanbul Queer Art Collective, Frances Whorrall-Campbell, Imogen Cleverley, Puer Deorum, Pamela Enyonu, Abigail McGinley, Erin Holly, Anya Palamartscuk, Magda Onatra, Ruiji Han, Hazel Blair, H. Alix Mourrier, Kasra Jalilipour, Feryel Atek, Susannah Pal, Rowan Riley, Peggy Huang, Daniel Felstead, Muzi, Finn Dovey, Bart Seng Wen Long, Yiwen Li, Chaney Diao, Juliusz Grabianski, Laura Kazaroff, Thom Grog.

Sophie Seita, with with with (2022), screen-print on cotton with text in two colours (orange, blue), dimensions: 3.45m x 1.45m, oak rod

withwithwith is a textile piece originally made for live performance. The screen-printed text is an erasure of Sophie Seita’s piece ‘Reading the Rock’, leaving behind only the prepositions. The prepositions trace the text’s preoccupation with making seemingly incommunicable feelings more tangible. The blue text was made using puff binder which creates a raised surface texture after it reacts with heat in the curing process. So when you touch the text it’s as if the words move a little bit closer to you, creating a different kind of space or relation with or through you. Prepositions are all about contact and direction. They determine how we move in space; how we view ourselves in relation to what surrounds us; what or who touches us and what or whom we touch or move alongside in return.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/35751