Art
- Phantom Power, Focal Point
- D.M.S
- Thamesmead Youthstage
- Beautiful Octopus Club
- Squidz Club
- Feel Good Designers
- View From Behind The Futuristic Rose Trellis
- School of The Damned
- Archive
Sound
Costume
Video
Information
Contact
Art
Sound
Costume
Video
Information
Contact
Wed 24 Jun to Sat 12 Sep 2026
Focal Point Gallery
Focal Point Gallery presents Rosie Ridgway: Phantom Power, the artist’s first solo exhibition in the UK. Comprising all new work, this exhibition at Focal Point Gallery brings together interactive film, sound, costume and performance. A highly prolific and original artist, for over two decades Ridgway has explored collectivity within artmaking. What is involved within group dynamics? Where do individual and collective identities intersect? What are the strange and multiple was groups occupy space together
For Focal Point Gallery, Ridgway explores bands and the collective making experience, drawing upon the unpredictability of human interaction within an imperfect world. Ridgway’s collaborators often challenge ableist perspectives, encouraging attentiveness and generosity towards difference. Akin to a video game, visitors to the gallery can select 5 of Ridgway’s real-life collaborators from a cohort of 12, who then performance together, variations on melodic themes, which in turn are beset by interruptions from a roguish character dancing across a 3-screen installation. A second gallery is kitted out as an impromptu rehearsal room, inviting visitors to become creators, either alone or as part of a group dynamic, the malleable, adaptive nature of which is intrinsic to being and acting in the world together.
Ridgway’s practice pushes the boundaries of collaboration as an artform on its own terms. Unpredictable and unapologetically
experimental, radically inclusive, her practice seeks to create a counter-narrative to the cult of professionalism and pressures of individualism. At its heart, the exhibition unfolds as an unscripted quest, a search for new forms of kinship beyond identity or history. It gestures towards a commonality built through change, curiosity and a willingness to step into the unknown.
For this exhibition Ridgway uses the MacGuffin of a fictional band rehearsing a song as a field guide to the collective creative process, drawing upon the unpredictability of human experience in an imperfect world. In fiction, a MacGuffin is a plot device that keeps a story moving whilst often being insignificant or interchangeable.
For Ridgway, collaboration is a powerful artform, in and of itself, enabling co-creation between a diversity of individuals brought together through chance and a spirit of curiosity.
To celebrate the exhibition opening on Saturday 20 June, Rosie Ridgway and Focal Point Gallery josted an all-day event featuring live music, artist-led workshops for all ages, artist moving image and food stalls, inviting audiences to explore and celebrate underground practices.
Free and welcome to all, the line-up included Ridgway’s longtime co-conspirators and inspirations Dean Rodney Jr. & The Cowboys, Lady Neptune and Frank Chickens. Ridgway has produced a limited-edition mixtape featuring tracks by artists linked to the exhibition, which will be available to purchase.
Performances took place from 3pm on Elmer Square, outside Focal Point Gallery, followed by the exhibition preview from 6pm.