'Hosts and Visitors’ was a two person exhibition in The Glasgow School of Art’s Reid Gallery showcasing newly commissioned work by Birthe Jorgensen and Sogol Mabadi.

Often in two person exhibitions, the curator or organisation as the host brings two practices together who may not necessarily know each other. ‘Hosts and Visitors’ was different as there has been a long period of preparation, in getting to know each other’s work and processes which included the two artists and curator. ‘A Year-Long Conversation’ (2015) took place between the artists and the curator, Jenny Brownrigg, who introduced them. The artists met each month over a year, in order to see what the connections and disparities were in their work and processes. They invited Jenny Brownrigg at key points to record their process through writing and feedback, in particular noticing their key words or 'anchors' that they returned to in order to describe their own practice. This resulted in a presentation as an event at 1 Royal Terrace (2015) as part of Birthe Jorgensen’s solo exhibition there. The proposed exhibition ‘Hosts and Visitors’ was the opportunity for these artists to consolidate on their ‘Year-Long Conversation’ and push the boundaries of their respective practices.

‘Hosts and Visitors’ took as its focus and inspiration the subject of diaspora and migration. This theme came out of the artists’ discussions on language and identity and how their art practices creatively engage with it. Each of the artists was born in another country – Jorgensen is Danish and Mabadi was born in Tehran. Both artists also have keen interest in performance, both individual and collaborative; and the act of making. Over the ‘Yearlong Conversation’ (2015) it became apparent that Jorgensen, who had a very collaborative practice, wished to return to the private act of making; whilst Mabadi, who had a very private practice of one-to-one performances and making, wished to become more collaborative in her approach. This encouraged the sub-themes of private / public and outside/ inside or outsider/insider for their proposed GSA project.

The artists shared a studio at Glasgow Sculpture Studios for two months in the run up to the exhibition. Brownrigg also asked them to reflect on the now private nature of the Mackintosh Museum, closed for restoration, and the public Reid Gallery, as a mirror to the directions they were moving on within the trajectories of their practice.

For their individual offerings for ‘Hosts and Visitors’, Birthe Jorgensen made a series of wooden carvings of partially painted female figures inspired by references from museum artefacts from all over the world. 'Good Old Light' (2016) was a sculptural work incorporating two large velvet curtains that were custom made for “the Mack” lecture theatre in the 1950s’ which showed the trace of decades of exposure to the light which poured through windows onto their now brittle silk lining invoking the ghost image of a window. Jorgensen saw this piece as an archive of light. 'From rage to grief and back again' (2016) was a second site-specific installation by Jorgensen in the Reid Gallery. Thick shards of glass pierced the skin of the gallery wall. Facing the street, this work when viewed from outside, interrupted the sombre geometry of the Reid building’s exterior surface. The sun’s rays at particular points of the day, bounced off the mirror shards and create pinpoints of reflected light inside the Mackintosh’s studios.

Mabadi produced a series of ‘rest’ chairs made out of shoulder pads and knitting needles, bra straps and other feminine signifiers. She also made a series of ‘anxiety tools’, using materials that for her are embedded with a particular meaning. On the public preview night, Mabadi worked with a team of five student performers from Royal Conservatoire and The Glasgow School of Art. A development from her ‘Home Visits’, a sequence of one-to-one performances that Mabadi made in people’s lounges, Mabadi worked with the students and chose the hosts, for the students to visit at their homes. This performative action mirrored the public and private dynamics the artists wish to highlight in this project.

Jorgensen and Mabadi curated the events programme accompanying the exhibition. Professor Alison Phipps (Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies, and Co-Convener of Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNET)) gave a public lecture entitled: ‘We Refugees’: The Languaging of Breath against Death or ‘Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu’. This lecture
addressed themes of migration, otherness and identity which are fundamental in both artists work. There was also a screening of 'The Silence' ('Sokout'), 1998 directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Iran). The film was introduced by Dr Jim Harold.