The Glasgow School of Art

Hold Fast, Stand Sure, I scream a revolution
Serena Korda
Part of Glasgow International 2016
7th April - 27th April 2016, 10:00-16:30pm daily, until 8pm on Thursday during GI

PERFORMANCE 7:30pm Friday 15 April

We are proud to announce that this solo exhibition is part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art's Supported Programme. This project has been developed in partnership with Comar, Isle of Mull.

Serena Korda (b. 1979 in London, England) lives and works in London, England. Korda studied at Middlesex University and completed her MA in Printmaking at Royal College of Art, London, England in 2009.

Korda will produce a new sound sculpture for the Reid Gallery that combines her interest in primitive impulses, invented tradition and our skewed relationship to nature.  Taking her inspiration from the politically radical history of Garnethill (the surrounding area of the Reid Gallery), whilst considering the geographical significance of The Isle of Mull as a portal to the underworld.  Korda continues her investigation in to “thin places” anomolies in the landscape which were viewed in pre - Christian times as access points to the afterlife.  Garnethill is situated on a drumlin, a village like community nestled on a steep hill in the centre of Glasgow which has seen the rise of The Glasgow Girls, the Scottish suffrage movement, The Women’s Library and The Third Eye Centre (now the CCA). 

Inspired by this countercultural history and the current political fervour of Scotland, Korda takes the mushroom as her starting point for entering these otherworlds.  Mushrooms are imbued in our consciousness as grotesque, magic and poisonous.  They both attract and repulse in equal measure, closer to humans than to plant life, this confusing specimen holds us in rapture and fear.  Through foraging expeditions on the Isle of Mull, the deadly potential of some fungi presented themselves as possible pathways to “thin places”.  

Korda will produce a series of sound experiments performed by an army of ‘Agitators’ gathered from the communities of Garnethill and Mull.  

Solo projects and exhibitions include: Black Diamond, a public artwork for Hayerfordwest (2015), Aping the Beast, at Camden Arts Centre, London, England and The Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, England (2013). Films and performances have been shown in various exhibitions including: Laid to Rest, Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life, Wellcome Collection, London, England (2011); Spaces for the Imagination, Turner Conemporary, Margate, England (2011); and The Library of Secrets, New Art Gallery, Walsall, England; Whitstable Biennale (2008/09). Residencies include: Camden Arts Centre, London, England (2012) for which she produced a performance: Decosa,Tradition Stockholm, keifer pin: W A M A The Work as Movement Archive, a public artwork for Barton Hill Bristol, England (2012).

Supported by Glasgow International, The Glasgow School of Art, Comar and The Henry Moore Foundation.

View documentation photographs on GSA's Flickr: Hold Fast, Stand Sure, I scream a revolution

<<<DOWNLOAD MP3>>>

Download the track RE RE RE from Side A of the vinyl 'Hold fast, Stand sure, I scream a revolution', to be released on 22 April.

Printed in edition of 300, on the occasion
of the exhibition Hold Fast, Stand Sure,
I scream a revolution (2016) GSA/Comar,
by Serena Korda

Serena Korda & Martin Low 2016 ©