The GRAD Lab programme resumes this summer with a new exhibition of works by artists Susanne Clausen and Pavlo Kerestey.

Co-operating under the name ‘Szuper Gallery’, Clausen and Kerestey's ambivalent multimedia practice spans video, performance, installation and paintings. This exhibition, named in reference to the uniquely peaceful and non-hierarchical groups formed by Bonobo apes, explores alternative societal models as a means to conflict resolution and social integration.

In the video work Étant Ballet, performers are ‘crash-choreographed’ within the sets, enacting movements and text against a post-apocalyptic backdrop. Also on display at GRAD will be the video performance Liquid Trust, which takes inspiration from the ‘trust molecule’ or ‘love hormone’ oxytocin, sometimes prescribed for anxiety and designed to increase an individual’s social integration and trust.

A live performance of Liquid Trust will take place at the ICA, in partnership with GRAD and the University of Reading, on 14 July 2015.

Susanne Clausen (born Munich, Germany) and Pavlo Kerestey (born in Uzhgorod, Ukraine) live and work in Reading and Munich. They initially formed Szuper Gallery as a tool to explore the concept of gallery as institutional critique. Now operating as an artists’ collective, they have since moved on to larger sites for art production and continue to renegotiate their East-West experiences through a number of projects looking at precarious working conditions, disaster narratives and social choreography. Clausen and Kerestey recently exhibited at Western Front Vancouver (2014), National Museum of Art Ukraine (2013), Perm Museum of Contemporary Art (2012), Kunstmuseum Thun (2012), MacKenzie Art Gallery (2011), Kunsthalle Helsinki (2005) and Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong (2005).