Overview

The Soothsayer's Chorus is a multimedia group exhibition curated by Beth Greenacre and Bettina Prentice. The exhibition opens on 3rd October in the historic former studio of the band Pink Floyd on Britannia Row in London. The exhibition includes important loans alongside works made or expanded for The Soothsayer’s Chorus.

 

The Soothsayer’s Chorus reclaims Cassandra—the prophetess of Troy who was cursed by Apollo to speak truth without being believed—as a collective, polyphonic figure. Rather than a lone voice doomed to isolation, Cassandra becomes many women speaking at once, across mediums.The artist is the seer, whose visions - ecological, social, political - must not be dismissed.

 

The show tilts Cassandra towards a figure of collective memory. Prophecy is reimagined as inheritance—something passed from voice to voice, generation to generation. The exhibition will focus on female artists who explore intuition, collective ancestral memory, and speculative futures.

 

Artists include Ana Mendieta, Cecilia Vicuña, Clementine Keith-Roach, Davina Semo, Elise Morin, Field Kallop, Hope Atherton, Jewel, Judy Chicago, Katie Paterson, Lucía Pizzani, Manal Al Dowayan, Nika Neelova, Saya Woolfalk, Veronica Ryan OBE RA, and Virginia Overton. Their practices challenge the hierarchy between human and non-human, present and future, matter and spirit, rational knowledge and liminal states. The show posits that our survival depends upon becoming better listeners.