Project Pygmalion

A reclaimed Bermondsey warehouse hosts an explosive collaboration between the visual and performance arts exploring the myth of Pygmalion from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Open for one weekend only this exhibition offers a free gallery with an interactive tour and a ticketed evening bill of live performances.

The story tells of an artist who, dissatisfied with real women, creates an ivory statue so perfect that he falls in love with it. The Goddess Venus grants his desires by breathing life into the statue and giving Pygmalion a “real woman” to love.

This ancient story is reconstructed by a diverse group of artists gathered by Crossarts Collective. In their first project, they explore a tale of creator and creation: blurring the boundaries between audience and artwork to question the relationship between art and reality in a modern era.

By day the natural light fills the studio to capture several visual artists’ responses to the story, with a daily interactive tour taking the audience on a physical exploration. As night falls the gallery turns theatre to a host of live performance, each act examining their own chosen element of the myth.