Art of Improvisers

15 – 22 June 2017

Café Oto

Art of Improvisers Extended is a festival, an exhibition and series of events focussing on the importance of women in free improvisation and the visual arts. The venues are Café Oto and the nearby Oto Projects Space, in Dalston, East London. This show draws on a number of female artists who are part of the newer generation of free improvisers and are also artists in other media.

Visual work in Oto Projects, round the corner from in Café Oto, will be exhibited by Andie Brown, Tania Chen, Poulomi Desai, Helen Frosi, Sharon Gal, Rie Nakajima, Julie Pickard, Gina Southgate, Helen Petts, Maggie Nicols and Blanca Regina. The festival includes workshops with Maggie Nicols, Sharon Gal, Helen Frosi, an Art+Feminism event and a talk with participant artists.

There’ll also be evening performances in Café Oto on June 15 and 16. Performers include the exhibiting artists plus Terry Day, Mandhira de Saram, Julie Kjaer, Maggie Nicols, David Toop and Steve Beresford. An Art of Improvisers compilation CD of these artists will be released and available at the Festival and at our online shop. You can listen to a sneak peak of it at the recent radio show presented by Gal, Beresford and Regina at ResonanceFM.

Drawing on an extensive body of previously unseen artwork, Art of Improvisers in London from June 15 – 22, 2017 will look at the history and the current state of women in free improvisation and also free improvisation’s strong, but rarely noted, connections to the visual arts.

Curated by Blanca Regina and Steve Beresford of Unpredictable Series, which engages artists and audiences in new ways of making and understanding music and art. Art of Improvisers is supported by Arts Council England, Cafe Oto, The British Music Collection, Sound and Music, Art+Feminism and is in association with the Wire 400.

Read more and buy tickets on the Unpredictable website.