About

Roshana Rubin Mayhew is an artist and lecturer moving through performance, sound, sculpture, text, and image making. Roshana is currently focused on holding and wrestling a bodyweight of clay. This leads her PhD research at Royal College of Art, investigating queer matters like the charge of the live holding space and the significant potential of improvisation. This places emphasis on bodily knowledge, disciplinarily dissonant experimentation, emergent structures, and the blues. She holds an MA in Photography from London College of Communication, is a classically trained musician, and can occasionally be found in dance environments. Roshana has shown work across Europe in the form of exhibitions, live work, performance lectures, workshops, publications, and neckerchiefs. A serial collaborator, she is currently part of the pedagogical collective Gentle Gestures. She now lives in London and teaches at University of the Arts, London, University of East London, and Istituto Europeo di Design, Milan.

Upcoming

14 March 2024
The rub of the sweet spot
Presentation at Queereal Materialities Live! at Glasgow School of Art, Scotland

June 2024
Gentle Gestures: contexts, spaces and approaches beyond the academy
Issue for Makings Journal co-edited with Gentle Gestures (Anouk Hoogendoorn, Sophie Mak-Schram and Dr Paul Stewart)

28-29 June 2024
Collaboration and Collectivising: Potentials and Intersections
Conference Stream co-curated with Gentle Gestures for London Conference in Critical Thought, University of Greenwich, London UK

2023-2025
Research Group Gentle Gestures
Co-lead | Artist Pedagogy Research Group SAR (Society for Artistic Research), Helsinki Finland


Past

Exhibitions and Performances

2024 w tenderness | Chasma at Beaconsfield Gallery, London UK
2023 Suits from Movements One & Two | Queereal Secretions at Annex Gallery, Glasgow Scotland
2023 Pre and Remains from Movement Two | Earthwise at Beaconsfield Gallery, London UK
2023 Feeling the Blues: Movement Two “MAKE ME WET” | Performance at Hopscotch Research Biennale at Copeland Gallery, London UK
2022 Feeling the Blues: Movement One “4’45”, hold” | Performance and exhibition remains at Unruly Encounters, Southwark Park Galleries, London UK
2022 coma burrito | Performance at Weathering Entanglement Research Platform at Dungeness UK
2021 Reading at Just Dreaming Entanglement Research Platform, Royal College of Art UK
2021 stigma root cap | Performance at Royal College of Art Presentation Platform, London UK
2021 Research Biennale | Royal College of Art, London UK
2020 desire-gram | Grand Re Union issue: Rooted Hauntology co-curated by Ingrid Vranken & Marta Keil | Art Stations Foundation, Poznan Poland & Counter Pulse, San Francisco USA
2020
Trio Talk Rhizome #2/1 with Eva Karczag and Mayfield Brooks, Trio Talk Rhizome #3/1 with Jennifer Monson and Mariana Renthel | Grand Re Union issue: Liquefaction curated by Peter Pleyer | Art Stations Foundation, Poznan Poland & Counter Pulse, San Francisco USA
2020 Paris Ass Book Fair (Queer Street Press & Beyond Beyond) | Palais The Tokyo, Paris (Covid cancelled)
2019
 Portals (Beyond Beyond) | Stand by me at Pelagica, MiArt & Milano Art Week, Milan Italy
2019 Strange Perfume (Beyond Beyond with Davide Meneghello) | South London Gallery, UK
2019 Rationalising a stepping away from rationality, or Blue Amadou | We belong to a poetry club for Walk-in Studio, Milan Italy
2018 Anomalies in the flux of normal things | Solo show at Nowhere Gallery, Milan Italy
2017 Notes for a new world order (Beyond Beyond) | Shape of things to come at Nowhere Gallery, Milan Italy
2017
Notes for a new world order: Portal #1 (Beyond Beyond) | Solo show at Artquest Lifeboat Residency, London UK
2016
Where space is granular, things are nowhere and time does not exist | Screensavers at Artquest Lifeboat Residency, London UK
2016
Underfoot is space | 26 Caledonian Road at Geddes Gallery, London UK
2015 
Metacrush | The Present Hurts at London College of Communication, London UK
2014 What is Left? (with Ellie Harrison, The Grief Series) | Solo UK Touring exhibition in empty houses (b-side Multimedia Arts Festival Portland, Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Stockton Arc, Barnsley Civic)
2014 SAVANNAH (GJRL collective) | Solo show at Art Licks Weekend, A_Space, London UK
2014 I’m not sorry (GJRL Collective) | Jonas Julekort 2014 at Jonas Julekort, Copenhagen Denmark
2013 Film start time | Performing Paper at Paper Gallery, Manchester UK
2013 The Breath Collection | Vantage Art Prize 2013, Leeds UK
2012 The Sleep Collection | Islington Mill, Salford UK
2012 The Breath Collection | Salon Art Prize 2012 at Matt Robert’s Art Gallery & Griffin Gallery, London UK
2012 The Breath Collection | World Event Young Artists 2012 at Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham UK
2012 Film Start Time | The Manchester Contemporary, Represented by Paper Gallery, Manchester UK
2012 The Breath Collection | Culture Cloud at New Art Exchange, Nottingham UK
2012 Glimpse | Photography Open 2012 at Surface Gallery, Nottingham UK
2012 Photographic works | Paper at Paper Gallery, Manchester UK
2011 Film Start Time | Solo exhibition at Cornerhouse (now HOME), Manchester UK
2007 My Home a Social Space | Performance, My Flat, Manchester UK
2006 Microwaveable Moments | Performance, Method Lab Live Art Commission, greenroom, Manchester UK
2006 Melting Moment No. 1 | Performance for Live art cabaret at Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, UK
2005
?erhaps | Performance for Emergency at greenroom, Manchester UK

Publications

2023 Feeling the Blues in Queereal Secretions (eds Nicky Coutts & Henry Rogers) | Glasgow: Queer Materialities Network
2023 Entanglement Neckerchief in Earthwise | London: Royal College of Art
2021 stigma root cap in PROVA 6 (eds Chantal Faust & Nicky Coutts) | London: Royal College of Art
2020
Queer is a portal in Modern Queer Poets | London: Pilot Press

Awards & Grants, Commissions & Residencies

2022 RCA Research Funding, working with Kathy Crick (Trinity Laban)
2017-2018 Contact Mcr & The Proud Trust Commission (Beyond Beyond)
2017 BJP Portrait of Britain (Beyond Beyond)
2016-2017 Artquest Lifeboat Studio Residency
2015-2016 Metro Imaging Mentorship Award
2016 Magnum Graduate Photographers Award (nominee)
2015 R&D Residency with City Arcadia, Artspace in collaboration with Giulia Astesani (Beyond Beyond)
2014 Residencies across Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, b-side Multimedia Arts Festival Portland, Stockton Arc, Barnsley Civic, supported by Arts Council England in collaboration with Ellie Harrison (The Grief Series)
2012 R&D supported by Arts Council England in collaboration with Ellie Harrison
2012 Residency at Islington Mill, Salford
2006 Method Lab Live Art Commission
2006 Nuffield Theatre Commission, Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts

Research & Conferences

2023 Presented Queer Invention through the pleasurable flow of improvisation in stream Thinking-Feeling Desire in the Now: Post-Capitalist Desire and Practices of the Body, London Conference in Critical Thought | London Metropolitan University UK
2023 Stream Gentle Gestures co-curated with Anouk Hoogendoorn, Sophie Mak-Schram and Dr Paul Alexander Stewart, London Conference in Critical Thought | London Metropolitan University UK
2022 Research Assistant on Representation of Women Artists in the UK During 2021, Lead Researcher Dr Charlotte Bonham-Carter | Freelands Foundation
2022 Presented HOLD! refold in stream Sticky Matters, London Conference in Critical Thought | Birkbeck College, University of London
2015 Conference Laughing My Art Off co-organised and chaired | London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London

Lecturing and Workshops

2023 ongoing Associate Lecturer | University of East London
2021 ongoing Associate Lecturer | University of the Arts, London
2017 ongoing Lecturer | Istituto Europeo di Design, Milan
2019 Possible Utopias Cross-course four-day workshop | Istituto Europeo di Design, Milan
2018 On Desiring & Unknowing Workshop | Islington Mill Art Academy Masters
2017 Workshop Leader | London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London
2012 Visiting Lecturer | Manchester Metropolitan University
2011 On documenting performance Workshop | 11-11-11
2010 Mentor and Workshop Leader | Contact Mcr/Future Fires
2010 Creative Practitioner | Centre for Urban Education
2007 Artist Assistant | Creative Partnerships (Greater Manchester)
2006 Creative Practitioner (Prince’s Trust Funded) | Pupil Referral Units (Manchester)

Collaborations

2022 ongoing Gentle Gestures with Anouk Hoogendoorn, Sophie Mak-Schram and Dr Paul Alexander Stewart
2016-2020 Beyond Beyond with Giulia Astesani
2014-2016 GJRL collective with Giulia Astesani, Jessie McLaughlin and Lalu Delbracio
2012-2014 with Ellie Harrison on The Grief Series

Press

The Independent
BBC 4 Women’s Hour
BBC Manchester
BBC Sheffield
The Big Issue
1000 Words (Beyond Beyond)
Artquest
DIVA (Beyond Beyond)
Girls Like Us – Family issue (GJRL)
Buzzfeed (GJRL)
Modus Operandi / T14 Contemporary (Beyond Beyond)
Central Station
Walk-in Studio
Pample-Mousse (Beyond Beyond)
The Old Girls Club (Beyond Beyond)
L-Mag (GJRL)
The Northern Echo
Lancaster Guardian
Dorset Echo
Art Daily
The Mancunion

Education

2020-present PhD Practice-led Research (School of Arts & Humanities), Royal College of Art, London UK
2015 MA Photography with Distinction, University of The Arts, London UK
2009 Graphic Design HND with Distinction, Manchester College UK
2005 Foundation Art & Design with Distinction, Manchester Metropolitan University UK