Interview By Mia Kingsley
Arvida & Hannah, two girls from Sweden, both part of the ‘Ardorous’, an all female photography collective and both super creative. What better to do than open a pink floored gallery space together? Gal, located in Limehouse, London, is their new project. A small space to present work of their own and of the artists they admire. I talk to Arvida about how Gal became and what’s next for the space…
So what made you and Hannah want to open Gal?
Basically, we had a studio in the same building before the Gal space but it was awfully small so we were looking for a new one anyways. Then this studio on the bottom floor showed up and we just realised it will work as an exhibition space as well as a studio!
Tell us about the space, it has a pink floor?!
Yes! Gal is a small intimate gallery space with pink floor. Most of the time it serves as Hanna’s and my studio where we work, but a night here and there it turns in to a gallery.
Using the internet is a huge part of getting your work seen nowadays, it must be exciting to open a physical space?
Even though Gal will always have loads of connections through the internet, yes it is amazing to have an actual physical space. I’ve been online for such a long time and I am pretty bad at interacting and working with the rest of the world offline. So it’s super duper cool to have a space where you can actually meet people and show amazing people’s work!
What are you and Hannah looking for in potential artists who want to exhibit their work in Gal?
Really cool people that are super into whatever art they are making. I don’t think we have a super set idea of exactly what we want, but I am really exited about the new show which hasn’t even got a name yet! So this is like a sneaky preview. The people exhibiting will be Vanessa Omoregie with her CamGirlProject and Beth Siveyer, behind girls get busy, but this time with some personal work, I really like both girls’ work so I’m like overly exited. We have also been talking with a lot of cool collectives, but nothing’s really set atm so we’ll see what’s coming up!
(Photo above by Jennifer Mehigan, an artist exhibited at Gal)
If you could choose a dream artist (dead or alive) to exhibit in Gal who would it be?
Omg. Oh. Such a hard one. I’m SO bad with names. But it would probably be some cool mix of some of my online favorite babes like Grace Miceli, Gabby Gabby, Lauren Cook, Girls Get Busy, The Coven, Black Salt Collective and more, that just seem to be really cool people. Like I’m so happy to have both Vanessa and Beth for the next show, so that’s totally the kind of artists we want for Gal!
Are you going to present any of your own work in the gallery?
Me and Hanna did that already in our first exhibition Birds and Nipples! I hope there is more to come though. I am working on some stuff atm so we’ll see. Hopefully we might get some 3D for it together, but yeah, we’ll see.
Which is your favourite gallery space in world to visit?
Gal 😉
Can you remember the last exhibition that really impressed you?
Oh well. Hmm. I went to the Manet show at V&A here in London a while ago. I went with my mum and she paid the audio guides, that was simply amazing. This really reminds me I have to go to some more shows soon.
Where do you see Gal in 1 year’s time?
Omg no clue! It might just be up for a year. Maybe two. Me and Hanna are young and quickly changing. It’d be amazing to take her for a tour, our little Gal. We’ll see!
What’s next to exhibit? Should we be excited??
As I mentioned above: CamGilrProject and Beth Siveyer with some personal work. You simply CAN’T miss out! I think it will be amazingly rad!
Thanks Arvida!! The Cooler girls will definitely be making a trip down to Gal in the near future 🙂 Here a few links to keep updated on the activity of Gal:
Next week I will be chatting to Carly Scott, an amazing fashion photographer. So keep your eyes peeled, out next Thursday!
Mia Kingsley miamagnoliakingsley.tumblr.com xxx
