Candida Powell-Williams has been exploring the cultural heritage of tarot. A longstanding interest in our attempts to navigate the Absurd led her to consider mysticism within storytelling and its meeting point with the mundane materiality of objects. Powell-Williams research, as part of her residency at London’s Warburg Institute, informed the creation of an hourlong performance at the Serpentine Gallery, London in September 2018, where she re-animated the tarot as a three-dimensional space, exploring the encounter between action, storytelling, symbolism and magical thinking.

Artist’s bio

Candida Powell-Williams graduated from the Royal College of Art, London in 2011 and the Slade School of Fine Art London in 2009. Her sculptural and performance works are a response to researching the slippage that occurs between primary and secondary source material, exploring the consequences of retelling history and how we construct identity through objects and memory. She is currently Artist in Residence at The Warburg Institute London. Selected exhibitions include: Lessness, still quorum, performance, Serpentine Galleries, London (2018); Boredom and its Acid Touch, Frieze Live, London (2017); Tongue Town, Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo (2017); Cache, Art Night Associate Programme, London (2017); Vernacular History of the Golden Rhubarb, Bosse & Baum Gallery, London (2017); PIC performance festival, Melbourne, Australia (2016); Coade’s Elixir-an occupation, Hayward Gallery, London (2014).