In Conversation: Rudy Loewe and SA Smythe

Rudy Loewe (b.1987, they/them) lives and works in London, UK. They hold a BA in Illustration from the University of Brighton, UK (2010), an MFA in Visual Communication from Konstfack, Stockholm, SE (2018) and are currently working towards a practice-based PhD at the University of the Arts London. Loewe has exhibited internationally in institutions and galleries including: Humber Street Gallery, Hull, UK: South London Gallery, London, UK; New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK; Botkyrka Konsthall, Stockholm, SE; Vallentuna Kulturhus, Stockholm, SE; Marabourparken, Sundbyberg, SE; Royal Academy, London, UK; Regart Centre D’Artistes En Art Actuel, Lévis, CA; DobraVaga, Ljubljana, SI; 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, London, UK; Staffordshire St, London, UK; Serpentine Galleries, London, UK. They have had public commissions including: LDN WMN billboard commissioned by Tate and the Mayor of London, London, UK; Becontree Forever schools project, commissioned by Barking & Dagenham council, London, UK; The Depths of Our History, Contemporary Art Space Project commissioned by Iniva and RSA Academies, UK; Black Women in History, Pen Store shop front window, Stockholm, SE; PROCESSIONS banner commissioned by Artichoke, London, UK; Draw Or Die! Grafikens Hus shop front window, Södertälje, SE. Residencies include: Ecologias Especulativas, Labverde, Brazil (2023); Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK (2023); Early Years Artists in Residence, Serpentine Galleries, London, UK (2020); Distributed Identities, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada (2019); We Dey, X Space, Austria (2019); The Bothy Project, Scotland (2019). Recent exhibitions include shows at VITRINE Fitzrovia, London, UK, Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, UK, PEER gallery, London UK and a public sculpture presentation in the Liverpool Biennial 2023, UK.

SA Smythe is a multi-instrumentalist, storyteller/memory worker, transdisciplinary educator and critical theorist concerned with the thrival of our relations beyond every border. Smythe’s transmedia practice weaves black trans poetics, sound composition, performance, light sculpture, and archival ephemera. Their collaborative and solo works have been developed at international artist-composer residencies and featured in exhibitions and multimedia installations, experimental film, poetry anthologies, and at literary and performance festivals including: the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, FADO Performance Art Centre, and the Banff Centre in Canada; BASE Milano, Palazzino indiano arte/CANGO (Florence), Mattatoio Museum (Rome), and Villa Lena Foundation in Italy; Kampnagel (Hamburg); Africa Writes Literary Festival (co-headliner, London [UK]); and GXRLSCHOOL Los Angeles, Virginia Centre for the Creative Arts, The Church (New York), and the Lindemann Performing Arts Center (Brown Arts Institute) in the States. They were a 2023-24 MacDowell Fellow in Multimedia Installation and recipient of the 2022 Rome Prize for Modern Italian Studies. Currently based between Tkarón:to and Italy, Smythe works at University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information as Assistant Professor of Black Studies & the Archive and Director of the Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis.