ENCOUNTER
Birgitte Aasen
Marg Duston
Robin Gardiner
Carol Mancke
Kathy Taylor

13-16 November 2025
Open: Thursday- Sunday 2-6pm
and by appointment*
Pv: Friday 14 November, 6-9pm
*contact carol@machinaloci.com

Encounter
[from Old French encontre – a meeting;
a fight; opportunity – in turn from Late Latin incontra – in front of]

Aristotle compared the relation between the individual’s interior and the exterior world, to that of a brick mould and raw clay. Inside each of us, a fixed mould waits to be filled by what we encounter outside ourselves. In opposition to this, the philosopher Gilbert Simondon proposes that what we call our self is not at all like a static mould but is more fluid and constantly in flux. We are always in the midst of becoming ourselves. Our self is a relational system constituted and individuated through our interactions with what is outside. Thus, our encounter with art sets in motion a process of change that Simondon likens to crystallisation – in which an encounter between a liquid solution (your fluid internal milieu) and an alien particle (an idea, an irritant, a splinter that comes to you from the artwork) results in the transformation of both into something entirely new, faceted and filled with light. Seventeen years after studying sculpture at Central Saint Martins, we five artists brought our disparate practices into relation through a series of encounters. No longer just working side by side, we met, challenged each other and found opportunity together — discussing, experimenting, and responding to each other’s ideas. The process was a meeting of perspectives, materials, and gestures that has unfolded into the paintings, objects and performances now in front of you.

References:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/encounter
Morizot, Baptiste & Zhong Mengual, E., 2017. For an Aesthetics of Encounter Art and Individuation. In: E. Zhong Mengual & X. Douroux, eds. Reclaiming Art / Reshaping Democracy – The New Patrons & Participatory Art. Monts.: Les Presses du Reel, pp. 384- 418.

Mancke, Carol, 2021, Thesis, Thinking in public: The affordances of hopeless spaces, PhD thesis, School of Arts & Humanities, Royal College of Art.

Front page image credit: Marg Duston Interaction; dimensions variable (2025)