Installation allows LUAP to work directly with architecture, material and the conditions in which a work is encountered. Existing rooms, public sites and temporary environments are treated as part of the work itself, with their histories, restrictions and physical character informing what is made. At Fulham Town Hall, the residue of a former holding cell became integral to the work, while Trees Are For Life, Not Just For Christmas transformed a concrete interior through reclaimed trees, artificial ground and atmospheric effects.
Across these works, Sculpture, found and reclaimed materials, colour and The Pink Bear are used to alter the character of a place. The scale ranges from enclosed rooms and temporary interventions to inhabitable structures such as The Pink Bear Pavilion, where a recurring image from the wider practice became something architectural that could be entered and occupied.
Installation gives these ideas a different kind of immediacy. Questions of access, enclosure, vulnerability and transformation are no longer contained within an image or object, but embedded in the viewer’s movement through the work. The encounter becomes part of its meaning.
Trees Are For Life
I Used To Be A Polar Bear,
2023,
Reclaimed Christmas Trees, Artificial Grass, Plush, Steel, Fibreglass, Plastic, Acrylic and atmospheric smoke,
20m x 20m,
Sculpture
LUAP, Wapp Art and Niya Ruseva present Trees Are For Life, Not Just For Christmas, transforming a concrete space in Wapping into a temporary forest of discarded Christmas trees. As the trees dry and change, the Installation extends their presence beyond the brief celebration for which they were cut.
LUAP features in Ham & High’s coverage of Open Cells at the former Hampstead Police Station, where The Pink Bear is placed inside one of the building’s original cells to explore mental health, isolation and psychological confinement.
LUAP presents Self Incarceration, developed during a Residency inside a former police station in Hampstead. The Installation explores human caged potential and how fear, trauma and our own feelings can incarcerate us even when the possibility of escape remains open.
LUAP features in Absolutely London’s preview of Kensington + Chelsea Art Week 2022, which highlights the return of The Pink Bear and a new immersive Installation at The Exhibitionist Hotel.
LUAP’s The Unconscious Therapy is featured by The Mayfair Musings as Great Portland Estates transforms 95 New Bond Street into an immersive exhibition during Frieze London 2021.
LUAP’s The Unconscious Therapy is featured by Retail Gazette as Great Portland Estates transforms 95 New Bond Street into an immersive exhibition during Frieze London 2021.
LUAP’s The Unconscious Therapy is featured by Artlyst, documenting his largest solo exhibition to date and the transformation of three floors at 95 New Bond Street into an immersive exploration of mental health, recovery and connection.
LUAP is featured by Marriott International following his selection as artist-in-residence for the opening of Moxy Berlin Ostbahnhof through the hotel brand’s global #BlankCanvas initiative.
LUAP is featured by VALEUR Magazine following the opening of Moxy Berlin Ostbahnhof, where his Pink Bear Photography and live Installation formed part of the hotel’s launch programme.
