Announcing off-site exhibition 'A Public Safety Concern' by artists Raheel Khan and Tiffany Wellington
6 September 2024
6–12 September 2024, 12–6pm
Opening: 5 September, 6–9pm
In collaboration with The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, Lisson Gallery presents an off-site exhibition by two London-based artists, Raheel Khan and Tiffany Wellington. ‘A Public Safety Concern’ marks the first collaborative project between Khan and Wellington, bringing together site-specific works by the artists across film, installation and sound. The exhibition takes as its locus the sculptural gestures inherent in everyday movement and objects, and a foregrounding of the otherwise ordinary.
Khan and Wellington’s new installations respond to and incorporate The Bomb Factory’s asymmetry and architectural features, notably its weathered concrete supporting columns and the seven floor-to-ceiling windows that frame life on the Marylebone Road beyond. What at first glance appears the result of each artists’ improvisational processes soon reveals itself as a mise-en-scène, with the works’ various elements dropping in and out of interaction with one another, as well as with external contributors. Perceptions of the internal and external start to shift, prompting a re-evaluation of our role within the composition, and the orchestrated versus the organic.
Presented as a site-specific film, Raheel Khan unveils Monotony of a Waterfall (2024), positions the windows of the space as screens, each understood as a bridging scene, viewpoint or chapter. Khan embeds moments of contemplation within the sound composition – comprising acoustic synthesised and actual woodwind and string instruments – that are punctuated and complemented by the unknowable sound of the surrounding city. Stemming from a broader interest in the cinema of the everyday and the behaviour and texture of sound in space, the work is grounded in this locality through Khan’s citing of a notable essay by nineteenth-century polymath, Charles Babbage, who resided on a nearby Marylebone street. In Observations on Street Nuisances (1864), Babbage argued that street noise “destroys the time and the energies of all the intellectual classes of society by its continual interruptions of their pursuits”. Khan raises questions around who maintains authority over noise and sound in the public arena, both industrial, mechanical, and human-made, particularly in times of protest and resistance. The exhibition precedes Khan’s commission for Nottingham Contemporary as part of an ambitious group exhibition, ‘Your Ears later Will Know to Listen’ (2025), which explores sound’s ability to map, travel and transition across cultures, times and experience.
Tiffany Wellington’s Witching Hour (2024) brings characterisation and personification of objects to the fore through its use of lighting. Centred around the 2024 film After Hours, the installation sees three TV screens present several scenes in which a cast of everyday objects are revealed by car headlights that flood the frame. A misplaced set of keys, a wooden palette awaiting collection – these actors or props are also physically present within the exhibition space, depicted both in person and on video in instances outside of their intended use or function. Coated in a reflective material but identifiable by their shape or perceived texture, they take on a ghostly presence in their filmic realm. Wellington draws here on the theme of the ‘it-narrative’, a popular eighteenth-century literary format whereby a story’s narrative was told from the perspective of a widely circulated inanimate object. Wellington has previously exhibited at Public Gallery, San Mei Gallery and Cubitt Gallery, London.
Khan and Wellington are both previous recipients of Lisson Gallery’s bursary for MFA postgraduate studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2022 and 2023 respectively. The bursary provides educational support for Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority (BAME) students enrolling in the MFA Curating or the MFA Fine Art courses, as part of Lisson Gallery’s commitment to drive change for equality and challenge the lack of diversity in the art community. More information on the Lisson Gallery x Goldsmiths bursary, and requirements for applicants, can be found on the Goldsmiths website here.
About Raheel Khan
Raheel Khan (b.1992, Nottingham, UK) is an artist and musician exploring the interstices of sound, text, installation and performance. Originally a student of Economics, Khan has moved towards an artistic practice that observes the effects of transnationalism, cultural infrastructures & policy, often finding language through subject & material. Current research explores the cyclical nature of time & promise through a compositional framework he describes as machine, devotion and the acoustic.
Selected exhibitions include Longsight Community Art Space, Manchester (2024), Deptford X, London (2023) Ovada Gallery, Oxford (2023), Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (2022), Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Edinburgh (2022), FACT, Liverpool (2021). Selected performances and talks have been at Cromwell Place, London (2024), Ormside Projects, London (2024), University of Bergen, Norway (2024) Audiograft Festival, Oxford (2023), Attenborough Centre for Contemporary Art, Brighton (2023), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022), Tramway Gallery, Glasgow (2021), Manchester International Festival, Manchester (2021). Khan was recently awarded the Almacantar studio residency & bursary for his MFA degree show at Goldsmiths in 2024, as well as the Lisson Gallery and Aziz Foundation scholarships to start his MFA in 2022.
About Tiffany Wellington
Tiffany Wellington (b.1996, Kingston, Jamaica) is an artist living and working in London. Wellington’s work explores the relationship between the object and the narrative, folklore and reality, the ghost and the being. Her multimedia works consider storytelling through the interweaving of personal experience and cultural histories. Across photography, performance, sound and sculpture, the installations are approached by the artist as a collection of thoughts that become embodied through the space.
Wellington received their BA from KASK Conservatorium, Belgium and Falmouth University, UK (2018 and 2019 respectively); and MFA from Goldsmiths University, UK (2022). Recent solo exhibitions include Grey Area, Studio Chapple, London, UK (2023); and Duppy Water, Public Gallery, London, UK (2023); Their work has been featured in recent group exhibitions at Public Gallery (2024); Collective Ending, London (2024); San Mei Gallery, London (2023); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2023); Austrian Cultural Forum, London (2023); Cubitt Gallery, London (2023); SET, London (2023); Cafe OTO, London (2023); Des Bains Gallery, London (2022); and Xxijra Hii Gallery, London (2021). Wellington was awarded the Lisson Gallery Scholarship in 2022 and Arts Council England Project Grant in 2023.
About The Bomb Factory Art Foundation
The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is a charitable arts organisation with four locations across London. It provides the public with opportunities to engage with contemporary art through a range of activities, including exhibitions, educational workshops, film screenings, poetry evenings, music performances, talks, and other cultural events. The foundation is committed to fostering inclusivity and accessibility in the art world, offering a comprehensive learning and participation programme that enriches local communities and schools.
Established in 2015 by artist Pallas Citroen in Archway, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation was created to support the development of art spaces that nurture artists and offer the public a more inclusive experience. Pallas, motivated by the belief that art has the power to enrich society, embarked on this journey to create not only a gallery and studio space but also a thriving artistic community.
