Heather Peak in Conversation at JHG

Sonia Boué and Ashokkumar D Mistry:
Las Gemelas: Arrival (a lexicon of unmaking)
5 October 2024 – 11 January 2025​​​​​​​

On 23 May 1937, the SS Habana docked in Southampton with almost 4,000 Basque child refugees on board. The Special Collections at the University of Southampton now holds archives relating to this event, the biggest single influx of refugees in British history.

Las Gemelas (The Twins), the creative duo Sonia Boué and Ashokkumar D Mistry, have different relations to these archives: Boué’s father was himself a political exile from the Spanish Civil War, while Mistry’s family fled the tumult of the waning days of Empire. Sharing a heritage of forced migration, their collaboration has produced a series of contrasting parallel responses.

Concerned with human and historical dislocations, the duo present their lexicon of unmaking. The customary formality of an archive is upended to present audiences with living memory sites, on the one hand imbued with playful energy and on the other celebrating generosity and the labours of care. Read more

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​​​​​​​DASH CEO and Artistic Director Heather Peak led an artist talk with Sonia and Ashok to learn more about their practice, neurodivergent thinking and how they came to work together.

The audience were invited to take a seat, or a bean bag and hold, play, stim with wool as they listened. Guests were also invited to select a green, amber or red pin badge to convey how comfortable they were engaging in conversation with fellow audience members.

A video recording of the conversation is available to view here.

John Hansard Gallery are one of the DASH Future Curator Programme partners. Find out more on the Curators section of our website.
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