Ashley Holmes, Good To Us

Good To Us is a new live presentation by Ashley Holmes. This work has developed out of a written adaptation of Dope, a poem by American writer, music critic and poet, Amiri Baraka (previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka). In the original work, Baraka takes on the persona of a Black preacher giving a sermon. In an erratic, humorous and satirical manner, the speaker convinces his audience to believe that it ‘musta been the devil” responsible for all the problems confronting Black people throughout history’. The sermon acts as a parody, and is referenced by Holmes as a way to consider how it is possible to confront voyeuristic cultures within ‘raciology’ – a discourse that assumes certain stereotypes, prejudices, images and identities. Good To Us, presented as a performance consisting of new moving-image works and an audio soundtrack, has been informed by Holmes’ recent research that attempts to dissect the complexities of what occurs when a collective ideology is challenged and/or put at risk.

Ashley Holmes (b. 1990 Luton, UK) is an artist who lives and works in Sheffield. He completed his BA (Hons) at Sheffield Hallam University in 2013. Recent selected exhibitions and projects; Collective Failure, J Hammond Projects, London, UK (2018); Ask About The Good Times, performance for English Man Going Insane, by Dominic From Luton (2018); 30 Day Free Trial, SET Space, London, UK (2018); The Teachers, collaboration with Haich, Peak, London, UK (2018) Mantel, Cactus at Copperfield Gallery, London, UK (2018); Money Cyant Fool Them Again (solo), 1.1, Basel, Switzerland (2017); Starless Midnight, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2017) Whenever A Heart Skips A Beat, EVBG, Berlin, Germany (2017); Medieval City One, Two Queens, Leicester, UK (2017); Shape Up (solo), Loser’s Gym, Nottingham, UK (2017); Post Digital, Floating Reverie, No End Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2016); A British Art Show, Meyohas, New York, USA (2016); A Small Group Show of American and British Artists, Space Space Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2015); Tough Matter, January 2018 – present. Forthcoming exhibitions include: Les Urbaines, Lausanne, Switzerland; Cry, Then Win, Then Lose (solo), Two Queens, Leicester; and Construction House, S1 Artspace, Sheffield.

This event has been commissioned for Survey.

It is free to attend. Booking is required via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/performance-ashley-holmes-good-to-us-tickets-49806118441

Image: Ashley Holmes, Good To Us, 2018. Image courtesy of the artist.