📅 Opening: 𝟏𝟒.𝟎𝟗

📌 Exhibition Room

In Claire Nichols’ artistic residency at Maus Hábitos - Espaço de Intervenção Cultural, the artist continues the

development of her series entitled Variations, which she began in 2017. Her artistic praxis is based on the notion of abandoning the construction of a work as a finished and immutable product. Instead, in each exhibition she creates a web of relationships between found materials and objects, drawings, memories, sound and video, in order to present a three dimensional composition in a given space, in what can be called “constructed dispositions”. These compositions are the result of the variations obtained in each of the artist residencies she has undertaken, of the different geographical, social and cultural contexts, of the multiple collaborations, learnings, surprises and errors. Different layers that overlap, irregular in their thickness, transparency or opacity.

More important than the result is the process, which never relinquishes the relationship with the Other. The objects and materials are presented as sensitive triggers that bring us face to face with affects and percepts. And the performance, with the artist as its inhabitant, now in the company of musician Angelo Moustapha, invites us to enter into this “constructed disposition” and dialogue device.

-João Baeta

PARALLEL PROGRAMME:

Alongside her solo exhibition in the main gallery, Nichols will stage two performances – a sonic performance in the Maus Hábitos Concert Hall and an audio-visual performance inside of the exhibition. For the two performances,

Nichols will collaborate with musician Angelo Moustapha to explore the possibilities of improvisation between the disciplines of sculpture and music.

27th SEP 9:30pm more info →

Concert Hall

28th SEP, 9:00pm more info →

Exhibition Room

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Claire Nichols

Claire Nichols is a London-based artist working with performance and sculpture.

She has been developing Variations, a series of interdisciplinary exhibitions and audio-visual performances, since 2017.

Her Variations series was recognised via the Barbican Arts group Trust Main Prize Award, selected by Florence Peake

and Tai Shani in 2018. As part of this series, she has developed sound and movement collaborations at international

residencies including the Florence Trust, London; E.KA.TE, Nicosia; Space 118, Mumbai; Hangar, Barcelona; and Ecole

des Sables in Toubab Dialaw, Senegal. Nichols completed her BFA at the Ruskin, University of Oxford, and her MFA at

Goldsmiths, University of London. She works as a Lecturer in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts

London.

Angelo Moustapha:

Angelo Moustapha is a drummer, percussionist, composer and arranger. Moustapha was awarded “Best drummer

in Africa” at the Festival of the Best Instrumentalists of Africa and received the prize “Talent of Africa” in 2021

at the National Theater of Brussels.

Moustapha’s projects include Solo, Duo with Sylvain Debaisieux, Ibiyewa, and the Lara Rosseel Quintet who were

nominated for “Best Jazz Album of the Year 2022” on Bandcamp. Moustapha has also composed and participated in the realisation of several projects of artists across disciplines including filmmaker Sabine Theunissen at The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg, and artist Alesandra Seutin for a dance-theatre production of Mimi’s Shebeen at KVS, Brussels.