EXPOSURE 09 Award

Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art’s newly created EXPOSURE 09 Award, coincides with the opening of Frieze Art Fair. The award aims to provide an opportunity for one or more graduates from a London art school to exhibit works at a time when they can benefit from exposure to a wider, international, audience. In this the inaugural year, EXPOSURE 09 will show the works of Sonny Sanjay Vadgama, and a collaborative duo, Chris Gomersall and Mark Dennis, three graduates from Central St Martins College of Art and Design, from 8 October to 8 November in the Parasol unit Events Room and outdoor space. Subsequent awards will follow a rotating format, whereby each year a different London art school will be invited to nominate a shortlist of candidates. Selection will be based on the innovative skills and excellence in aesthetics demonstrated by the young artists.

Sonny Sanjay Vadgama

Sonny Sanjay Vadgama was born in 1981 in London. Prior to studying art he had worked as a production assistant for the BBC and later at various post-production facilities. Vadgama did his foundation year at the Byam Shaw School of Art (2004) and completed his BA with First Class Honours at Central St Martins (2006–2009). While studying for his BA he also participated in a three-month Erasmus exchange at the Royal College of Art in Stockholm, Sweden, which led to a range of collaborative video projects with Scandinavian artists. Through his work in video, photography and sculpture, Vadgama addresses and explores a range of narratives related to his political and cultural interests. For EXPOSURE 09, Vadgama will show Eye for an Eye, a video piece that synchronizes audio with digital images to detail the collapse of the Beirut Hilton Hotel.

Chris Gomersall and Mark Dennis

Chris Gomersall (1981–) and Mark Dennis (1981–) studied Fine Art at Camberwell College of Art and Edinburgh College of Art respectively before they began working together in 2007 while studying for their MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Now living and working in London, their work comprises leagues of linguistic propositions and axiomatically produced objects, all of which incorporate wilfully traced inconsistencies that nevertheless constitute a precise cartography of thought. Each artwork is produced via a series of axiomatic decisions that create the very conditions of its emergence. In turn, these decisions seek to systemize principles that are themselves essentially unsystematizable. Chris Gomersall and Mark Dennis will produce a site-specific installation for EXPOSURE 09.