The Showroom’s programme contains a number of strands, which will be developed over 2009/2010.

Artist Commissions

Following the first three exhibitions at Penfold Street showing new work by the Otolith Group, Ruth Buchanan and Emily Wardill The Showroom will continue to commission artists' projects. Plans for 2010 and 2011 include projects by Istanbul based artist Can Altay and Swedish artist Petra Bauer .

Afterall Seminar Series

In 2008 Afterall and The Showroom initiated an ongoing series of seminars focused on exploring critical practice, which are programmed to happen approximately every other month. For each of these a speaker is invited to present a new work or talk about something that they are working on, some of which will lead out of the content of issues of Afterall or build towards the content of future issues.

Projects in the Public Realm

Some of our projects will address the public realm and venture into dialogue with our neighbourhood. In 2010 the Estrangement Project – a collaboration with Wyspa Institute, Gdansk – will involve new site specific commissions by Iraqi artist Hiwa K, and Polish artist Johanna Rajkowska.

Communal Knowledge

In 2010 The Showroom will initate a series of projects entitled Communal Knowledge that aim to generate playful and experimental avenues for critical reflection on issues at stake in The Showroom’s neighbourhood, and ways to think about change on micro to macro levels. These projects will challenge and question the mechanisms and parameters of the lived environment, and those who take decisions within it, addressing how certain norms, values or imposed categories of thought enter into one’s ways of approaching everyday life. The emphasis will be on finding ways to re-think or ‘unlearn’ established norms, values, codes, roles and relations, and to produce an alternative body of knowledge gained through activity and experience. Communal Knowledge has been supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Research

The Showroom is initiating a number of long-term research projects that will come into fruition in 2010/2011. These include Signal:Noise, which involves a number of artists, writers, designers and researchers looking at notions of feedback and the legacy of cybernetics and information theory in relation to discussions around participation; another group project will explore the Cinenova womens’ film archive; Swedish artist Petra Bauer will be in London for one year on an IASPIS residency to research British film collectives and documentary filmmaking, which will lead into a new film production.

European Partnerships

During 2010/2011 The Showroom will collaborate on a series of artist commissions with four other EU partners: Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht, Electric Palm Tree, Amsterdam, Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp and Kunsthalle Sekt Gallen, which are supported by a grant from the European Union.