Launch Pad LaB is pleased to announce Louise Beer, Anna Perach and Pilar Quinteros as the artists selected for the residency’s eleventh edition from May 6th – June 20th 2024. To conclude the residency, Curator and Writer Debbie Meniru will moderate a day of studio visits and conversations with the artists.

Biographies

Louise Beer (b. Aotearoa, New Zealand) is an artist and curator, who uses installation, moving image, photography, writing, participatory works and sound to explore humanity's evolving understanding of Earth’s environments and the cosmos. Her experience of living under two types of night sky has deeply informed her practice. She explores how living under dark skies, or light-polluted skies, can change our perception of grief, the climate crisis and Earth’s deep-time history and future.

Recent commissions include Derby Cathedral x FORMAT Photography Festival, the Bodleian Library, People United, the Arts Centre Christchurch Te Matatiki Toi Ora. In 2024, Beer was awarded a British Council Connections through Culture Grant for a collaboration with Tūhura Otago Museum in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Currently, she is working on her second Arts Council England DYCP award. Beer holds an MA Art and Science from Central Saint Martins and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Middlesex University, London. She lives and works between London, Margate and Aotearoa.

Anna Perach’s (b. 1985, Ukraine) practice explores the dynamic between personal and cultural myths. She is interested in how private narratives are deeply rooted in ancient folklore and storytelling. In her work, she interweaves female archetypes into sculptural hybrids in order to examine ideas of identity, gender, and craft. The main medium of her oeuvre is wearable sculpture and performance.

Recent solo exhibitions include Gasworks, London (2024), ADA gallery, Rome, IT (2023), Edel Assanti gallery, London, (2022) and Herzliya Museum of contemporary art, Herzliya, IL (2021). Perach is a winner of the Hopper prize (2023), The Ingram Prize and the Gilbert Bayes award (both in 2021). The artist holds an MFA in Fine Art (distinction) from Goldsmiths, University of London. She lives and works in London.

Pilar Quinteros (b.1988, Santiago, Chile) combines drawing, performance and video, all media that allow her to investigate themes related to history, notions of “reality” and transformations of specific contexts. Sculptures made out of cardboard that represented everyday and decorative objects are among the earlier ephemeral interventions in public spaces, while more recently, performances include life-sized monochromatic representations in volumetric form. The medium changes according to temporary, contextual and practical needs. Almost nothing of what the artist has made exists today, due to the low resistance and delicate materials she chooses to use.

Recent exhibitions include ‘Orquideas de la Patagonia’ (Patagonia orchids), Espacio 218, Santiago (2023), ‘Senales de Humo’ (smoke signals), Espai Souvenir, Loop Screen Fest, Barcelona, (2022), Folkestone Triennial, Folkestone, UK (2021); 34o MDQ Film Fest, Mar del Plata, Argentina (2019); Kusthaus Pasquart, Biel, Switzerland (2018); California-Pacific Triennial – ‘Building as Ever’, Newport Beach, California, USA (2017). ‘Over the Ruins’, L’Occulta, Barcelona (2024 group) In 2018, Quinteros was awarded winner of AMA Scholarship for a residency at Gasworks, London. She is part of the art collective LA CUMBIA MAPACHE with filmmaker Patricio Blanche. The artist holds a BA from Pontifical Catholic University, Chile. She lives and works In Barcelona, Spain.

Debbie Meniru is a London-based writer and curator. Her art writing leans into emotion, anecdote and humour and has been published internationally, including by Hatje Cantz, Rizzoli, Tate, Hayward Gallery Publishing, CURA., and Numéro Art. As a curator, Debbie has worked on exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery, Tate Modern, Somerset House and the Migration Museum. She has guest-curated The Conch at South London Gallery and Within a Budding Grove at Pi Artworks, London. She is currently Assistant Curator of Interpretation at Tate Modern and Tate Britain.