Ain Bailey: And We’ll Always Be A Disco In the Glow of Love

And We'll Always Be A Disco In the Glow of Love presents new work by London-based artist Ain Bailey. This will include a commissioned audio composition installed in Cubitt’s gallery within a spatial design by Mexico City based designer Clemence Seilles.

And We’ll Always Be A Disco In the Glow of Love takes Ain’s own sonic biography around loss and thinking through how to sonify grief as a starting point. It asks how we might create a collective dialogue around the personal experience of dealing with death and mourning.

This new work has been developed through conversations with eight close friends who have experienced a bereavement. Ain’s own contribution links these together to form nine distinct parts. These nine contributions centre on the sound(s) of that experience – an audio memory, a song, affect or emotion. The process of working with and from these recordings asks how we think about death sonically and produces a collective composition. The number nine is significant as it draws on the Caribbean funerary tradition of Nine-Nights, in which a wake takes place over several days.

Ain Bailey’s practice involves an exploration of sonic autobiographies, specifically how people use sound to create a sense of place. Central to this is the idea of ‘sonic biography’ is the personal constellation of sounds that form an individual identity and collaboration with performance, visual and sonic artists.

As part of the exhibition Ain Bailey has invited three musicians, Elaine Mitchener, Hannah Catherine Jones and Rebecca Bellantoni to perform live within the space across three weekends in May, responding directly to the context of the exhibition.

A new scenography for the gallery designed and installed by Clemence Seilles continues the collaboration between Cubitt and Seilles initiated at the start of the Structures That Cooperate programme that opened in October 2018. This new design and spatial arrangement is the second part of an evolving support structure to host, hold, make space for (and adapt to) the work of artists, collectives, commissions, film screenings, events and workshops.

This is exhibition is supported by The Elephant Trust, Arts Council England and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

The invitation to Clemence Seilles to design and develop an ongoing scenography for the gallery launching with Ain Bailey’s work has been generously supported by FLUXUS