On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2016 we would like to introduce you to a few women that have impressed and inspired us.
I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to a contemporary Austrian-based artist who is going to have her first solo show in London later this month. Maruša Sagadin is making her mark on the London art scene. For her current commission by SPACE studios in Hackney she will present a new series of sculptural works as well as a related public 
work. Her sculptures will be developed in response to urban life in Hackney – reflecting perspectives from the general commercialisation of urban space to the personal experiences of the individual resident.
I find her work exciting because she examines, explores and investigates sign systems and their formal language. She takes these signs from architecture, pop and subculture and re-contextualizes them. They become abstracted, fragmented, refigured, assembled into sculptures with new meaning. She imitates mechanisms of representations in the public and media space in a playful and considered way.
Bro!, 2014 by Maruša Sagadin & Chris Fladung
Maruša questions the legibility and reading of these systems in her installations, sculptures, performative interventions and text-based collages. Whether she’s running through the streets of Vienna as a pseudo-rapper toting a giant boom box (MC for you vor Ort, 2012), or appearing as a caricature of public speaking (Sehr gern modern, 2010) her work calls out the pretense of ‘being’ by seeming. Her work is subversive, playful and thoroughly enjoyable!
Maruša Sagadin, My Bosses – We Bosses, 2009/2011. Mixed media. Exhibition site at Gosposvetska cesta 12, Ljubljana, 2011
Born in Ljubljana, Slovenia Maruša now lives and works in Vienna. She studied architecture at the Technical University in Graz and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She has had exhibited around Austria and internationally including LA, New York, Berlin, Ljubljana and in March London. Her solo show at SPACE won’t be her only London presentation. She will be one of 8 artists invited by the ACF London to create new work for our 60th Anniversary exhibition in June. We are really excited to see how she responds to the house and history of the ACF and we hope that you will have the chance to see her at SPACE and the ACF later this year.
„Paarreimen ist für weisse Mittelstandskids und das Rockbusiness hat noch nie was von komplexer Lyrik verstanden“ Installation, 2013
Maruša Sagadin at SPACE studios
Opening Thurs 31 March 6-8pm, free & open to all
Exhibition 1 April – 11 June
Gallery Hours: Mon – Fri 9am-5pm; Sat 12-6pm
www.spacestudios.org.uk
ACF 60th Anniversary Exhibition (title TBC)
17 June – 27 July
www.acflondon.org
By Vanessa Fewster
Visual Arts Project Manager at the ACF London
ACF Digital Salon 