CHRIS THOMPSON

My artistic practice is dedicated to creating ambitious and thought-provoking sculptures and installations that go beyond the cycle of objects for consumption. I aim to create work fueled by personal obsession and dedication, using these as tools to establish value and understand one’s position in the world. I make exhibitions that appropriate, reconfigure and antagonise diverse casts of materials, objects and references to build speculative, anthropological inquiries into history, cultural memory, material culture and the contradictions embedded within contemporary existence. My work typically takes the form of immersive sculptural installations with a site and contextual responsivity in which audiences and objects alike become participant and prop, I’m particularly interested in labour, power and violence. As an artist deeply connected to my post-industrial identity, specifically as someone from Teesside, my work is fundamentally shaped by this heritage. My father was a steelworker at Cleveland Bridge, a since-collapsed company based in Darlington. Darlington, once a significant exporter of infrastructure to Britain’s colonies, also contributed to the Thames Barrier. Family legend has it that my name is inscribed somewhere within its structure. My uncle, an electrical engineer, was involved in the construction of the Baltic, and remnants of its air conditioning system still occupy space in his garage. My most recent solo exhibition ‘kitbash’ is an exploration of the politics of archives, sci-fi and model- making as a way to think about the transformation of my home region, Teesside, into the UK’s largest Freeport, A system for both the free movement of goods, private money and the obscurification of ownership. My ongoing touring solo exhibition ‘The Vessel’ is a giant immersive coffin meets bar meets -storage container, that both functions as both a recreation of and critique of museological collecting from the perspective of an outsider emulating what methodologies for ascribing value that they know, to their junk- from old canes and dog-tags to scavenged bones, eagle statues, to video game clips and orchestral music, activated by touch- culminating in a cacophonous, communal experience.

I am represented by Xxijra hii, based in Deptford, London. Xxijra hii was founded in 2020 as a project space and became an independent gallery in 2023 with an international profile.

‘The gallery name is a device which promotes enlightenment through cultural dialogue. Our programme is the physical manifestation of this. We advocate for emerging and re-emerging artists who counter the mainstream and support outlier modes of thinking, practice and collaboration. The gallery commits to an annual programme of exhibitions and events at our London space whilst participating in fairs and collaborations internationally.’