Blank Banquet

Blank Banquet is a new exhibition by Joel Cocks and Tarren Johnson concerned with communication and thresholds of language. At its heart is the deconstruction of Cornelia's Room, an experimental operetta exploring feminine desire and the potential of messages to gain independent force from speaker or recipient. The script frames a romantic drama where Cornelia constructs meaning from her own desire, highlighting parallels between diplomatic and romantic correspondence. Large-scale mosaics composed of photographs from the artists' archives reshape the gallery and serve as scenic backdrops for durational performances. Writer Olamiju Fajemisin's reading of the script plays from speakers embedded in the mosaics, forming the soundtrack for the accompanying video work, Dripfeed Episode 6: Succubus. This episode captures the boundary between creation and collapse, exploring how narratives fracture and resist coherence. Blank Banquet reflects on the containment and release of information, and the processes of alignment and separation underpinning every encounter.