Elena Unger: Artist in Residence
Elena Unger grew up in Vancouver, Canada and moved to London in 2015 to study art. Unger is an alumnus of Fine Art at both Central Saint Martins and Goldsmiths, as well as a graduate of philosophy at the University of Cambridge. As both an artist and an academic, her art practice and academic work mutually inform one another. As an artist, she combines painting, sculpture, performance, sound, film, and installation to produce immersive, extra-liturgical installations. As an academic, she is concerned with the ontology of artistic making, arguing that works of art do not merely represent the ineffable but participate in it.
Unger was a CHASE Research Fellow at Goldsmiths in Philosophy and Art, where she curated an exhibition of film and performance. Unger is Artist in Residence at Saint Bartholomew the Great, London’s oldest Church, where she had a solo show in 2018, and curated an exhibition in 2023 entitled Eleven Twenty Three. Unger’s work was recently featured in the December issue of British Vogue. Unger was also featured in an art history book about Saint Bartholomew the Great by Charlotte Gauthier. Unger frequently exhibits in the UK and Canada and is featured in collections internationally.
Eleven Twenty Three
On the 20th of April, 2023, Elena Unger and co-curator Heidi Pearce brought together over twenty contemporary artists to present an immersive, multi-sensorial art exhibition entitled Eleven Twenty Three at St Bartholomew the Great. This exhibition is the first of its kind in this ancient, highly significant, and active Church on its momentous 900th birthday.
The exhibition comprises over thirtt artistic interventions from a multitude of different disciplines and mediums, including sculpture, sound, painting, textiles, aromatic work, and more. The show explores and reveals the unique configuration of space, sound, and liturgy in St Bartholomew’s and its effect on one’s perception of time and history.
Eleven Twenty Three articulates the feeling visitors often describe when stepping into St Bartholomew’s; that of feeling hyper-aware of its historicity and simultaneously feeling as though they have stepped outside of time.
The exhibition endeavours to show St Bartholomew’s as it is to those who have come to know it. It is a place with an instantly identifiable essence, with walls that pulse with life, listen, and watch. It shows a place that exudes a quiet dignity, wearing the presence of millions of parishioners and visitors over 900 years like a patina.
This exhibition brings new contemporary artistic impressions and perspectives to bare upon this sacred and enigmatic space, to both add to its legacy and to add some polish for the future.
Sponsored by Culture Mile, The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers, Ms Betters Bitters, Artisan Spirits, and JBE Imports
