Almanac is pleased to present When the sun is out, his house-shaped face bathes in it, a solo-exhibition by Italian artist Derek Di Fabio.

For his first solo show in the UK, the artist will develop a conceptual choreography, the movement of bodies becoming visible against the backdrop of a multifaceted stage. These movements organically evolve the states of materials: reinforcing the soft and thawing the stiff.

A series of workshops make up the soundtrack for the show, incorporating improvised actions and sought-out materials, the participants are treated as elements in an all-over composition. The installation takes shape through a series of events and activities, like marks on a canvas, which establish a cohabitation of layers.

The pieces are installed along the lines of a playing field, creating the possibility for continuous distraction in horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions. The space of the show becomes a field where roles are played out in order to find a precarious equilibrium.

In a process of de-gendering, the works become part of experiences that can be relived through shared memory. They can no longer be circumscribed (as a who/how/where). The exhibition aims to function as a diving board for creative production, continuously developing new point of departure in order to stop the looping of time.

Derek Maria Francesco Di Fabio (Milan, 1987) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brera. In 2010 he co-founded Motel Lucie, an experimental workshop for developing collective works. He has been involved in a collaboration with Cherimus since 2010. He has worked with Isa Griese as DW2♡♡8 since 2012. Recent activities include Let’s Circus, a project by Marco Colombioni at Piccola Scuola di Circo (2011), Milan, a residency at Fondazione Spinola Banna (2012) and the solo exhibition, Free Range Winter Banana, at Pavillon Social, Lucca – Italy (2013).
 
Workshop dates:

· Friday 11 October: Goops Gaps Gulps

· Sunday 20 October: Braiding Baked Buns with Ting Cheng

· Thursday 24 October: Shooters Hill College (with DW2♡♡8)

· Friday 25 October (with DW2♡♡8)
 
 
Goop Gaps Gulp

Friday 11 October
Studying architecture through its gaps.

Materials: A camera/camera phone

Goop Gaps Gulp is a workshop by Derek Di Fabio and forms part of his solo show When the sun is out, his house-shaped face bathes in it.

We need a safe place to dream. When we sleep, we commit our sense of safety to the place we are.

Urbanism makes safety one of the basic requirements of every building. We need walls to separate different activities and doors to close behind us. Doorways lead us inside a complex of rooms, and gates divide ownership and the paths of communication. The public use of buildings is determined by timetables.

Gathering together properties allows their borders to touch and become double.

Interconnection is necessary for movement, as our lives take place between the entrance and the exit of public and private spaces. When there are no walls, the objects around us delimit our private space, sometimes challenging the signs that give us directions for the use of public space.

We seize more space if we lay down. Our public architecture doesn’t consider its inhabitants as dreamers: sleep is a private action. The gaps in the borders of architecture are formed by the volume of sleepers.

Sculptures draw space around them in the complementarity of their presence. Humans learn by copying and recognising each other.

This workshop invites the participants to think sculpturally through the medium of sleep: finding possible gaps in the local architecture by documenting ways we could find safety outside an interior, and shaping news ways to use public space for dreaming.

Outline:

Everyone will bring his/her own camera (smart-phone, digital, analog, or film camera). In couples or groups of three we will explore the Dalston area. The participants are invited to find places where they could sleep the night. They will make a trial laying down in the location found. A picture will document the position. In the same surroundings, we will try to find a place where everyone could lay down together.
 
 
Braiding Baked Buns

Sunday 20 October
Braiding Baked Buns is a workshop collaboration between Derek Di Fabio and Ting Cheng, forms part of Derek Di Fabio's solo show at Almanac, When the sun is out, his house-shaped face bathes in it.
We will bake breads while
you are braiding hairs.
We will make braids with breads and our hair.
Bring your hair, wigs or (non-animal) furs.

While thinking about different forms living together, and the slow shaping of their joint outlines,
you will bake your own woven bread.

Braiding buns of hair.
Baking hairs with braids.
Hairy buns will be braided.
Braids of hairs and baked breads.

The bold/bald and shaven are welcome.
 
 
Shooters Hill College

Thursday 24 October

is a workshop curated by DW2♡♡8 and realized in a college in the South East of London

Study the architecture using fear.

Houses need fences, iron on windows, double glass, doors and more doors, he is afraid to forget his keys, a friend has a tic, he nervously and periodically checks if he still has his phone, wallet and keys. In his pocket he forgets his tissues that mince into crumbles living near his privates.

Pockets are his ears, facing inside, they are hang loose between his steady jeans and his embarrassing underwear. The firemen will take down one door, and then the other door. He fell asleep reading a table on the aroma compounds of different gasses. He smiled while reading it, he found the relation of the dangerous gas to the flavours of rose, apple and strawberry amusing.

Like at the colour mall, when he was browsing the names of wall paints, imagining an avalanche living room. Then they are in front of your room door, which is burning, it is pretty, its lock is crispy and then melts, drop by drop, the inner part of the door is not made of wood, more card-board, and it is flame friendly. They didn't think about this renewing the house, it was incredible cheap on those super thin and glued-together catalogue pages. Different colours can come up from catalogue pages depending on the inks they used.

The firewoman is outside the door; when she was moving houses, she would took the door of the toilet to go out instead of the front door. She blushed as she hit the door with her nose, it was mainly made out of glass and it squeaked a bit on their meeting.

Her sense of smell was great then she became a chain smoker, she lost it and she start to look for a new one, without the will leave her smoke cloud. Her teenage dream was to become a perfumer because she really loves the hairy flesh fold between arms and body. She lost her nose and she started to hold on to things. When you touch something it is easy to feel its smell, rubbing a subject its molecules fly through the air, where the nose hunts them down. No scrubs for her external parts, her skin is soft and smooth, lovers like to caress it, soft as ash.

She joined the firefighters for fire’s sake: fire has its own gravity and its own breath, it can not live without oxygen. Ash was her skin, smooth and soft.