Eloise collaborated with Propel for two iterations of her latest project, PressTracker, in 2020 and 2022, respectively.

“This project started as a way to record this quite overwhelming time, through collecting, even hoarding, newspapers from the earliest stages of the pandemic. I was able to pick up some of the plates that were used for printing which act as a kind of an indexical object from this time.” – Eloise Hawser, 2022

PressTracker is an experimental digital archive and series of sculptures exploring British newspapers over 500 days of lockdown. Eloise worked with over 1,000 British print newspapers published during the first phase of the COVID pandemic. She reconfigured these papers alongside discarded lithographic printing plates, re-making them into sculptural and 2D forms, thereby exploring their narrative, psychological and affective potential. PressTracker also considers the ‘decay cycle’ of news media; no more pronounced than in the printing process, which generates huge amounts of waste. Through each instance of PressTracker, Eloise is tracing the newspapers’ shifting forms of production, dissemination, and consumption in public life, re-situating it as a complex, and compelling, infrastructural phenomenon.

Eloise Hawser (b. 1985) is a conceptual sculptor and mixed media artist, living and working in London. She is currently a resident artist at Somerset House, and has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally. Her first UK solo institutional exhibition, Lives on Wire, was presented by the ICA in 2015. A major exhibition at Somerset House, By the deep, by the mark, followed three years later. Other shows include History of Nothing (White Cube, 2016), Weight of Data (Tate Britain, 2015), and Surround Audience (New Museum, New York, 2015). Her installation The Tipping Hall was presented at the Istanbul Biennial in 2019, before being exhibited at the Montpellier Contemporain (MO.CO.) in 2020. It was on display at Museum Tinguély, Basel, as part of the Territories of Waste exhibition in 2022. Works from Eloise’s PressTracker series were selected for The London Open 2022 and on display in the Whitechapel Gallery. Her works can be found in several institutional collections, including Tate Britain, and MUMOK, Vienna.

In recent years, Eloise’s work has increasingly focused on the infrastructures underpinning the news. In 2019, she created ‘A New Way to Set’, a night-walk of Fleet Street connecting vanished histories of the news industry with the street’s contemporary residents. In 2020, she was commissioned by Culture Mile to map the City of London’s rich heritage of news production. As part of the 2021 Royal Docks festival, she led a series of ‘walking workshops’ with community groups, investigating the relationship between local spaces and newspapers.

All photos: Gigi Gianella, courtesy of the artist

Maeve Brennan was awarded a Knotenpunkt ‘Propel’ grant to support a period of research and experimentation whilst on her residency at the British School at Rome between April and June 2023 through a Sainsbury Scholarship.

Maeve’s residency built upon her body of research ‘The Goods’ (2018 – present). In collaboration with forensic archaeologist Dr Christos Tsirogiannis, this cross-disciplinary project investigates the antiquities trade, tracing the circulation and preservation of objects from looters to museums.

Knotenpunkt’s grant facilitated various trajectories within her practice, with a focus on site specific research and material experimentation, including research trips to locations within Italy, such as ancient tombs and looting sites in Puglia and the Etruscan sites of Tarquinia and Cerveteri. Maeve used this period of research to develop her studio practice and experiment with a variety of forms and processes, engaging with time as a material (in stone, paper and found objects). This period of studio experimentation rested on her wider interests in forms of repair and reparative histories; the archive and forms of preservation, as well as the subterranean and forms of extraction.

Maeve Brennan is an artist and filmmaker based in London. Her practice explores the political and historical resonance of material and place. Working primarily with moving image as well as installation, sculpture and printed matter, she develops long-term investigations led by personal encounters. Adopting a documentary approach, Brennan gains intimacy and proximity with her subjects, producing complex and layered accounts that disrupt dominant representations. With a particular focus on forms of expertise that encompass an associated physical practice – geologists, archaeologists, architects, mechanics, embroiderers – her works excavate the multiple narratives latent in material itself.

Brennan graduated from Goldsmiths in 2012 and was a fellow at the Home Workspace Programme at Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2013–14). Recent solo exhibitions include Chisenhale Gallery, London; Spike Island, Bristol; The Whitworth, University of Manchester; Mother’s Tankstation, Dublin; Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art in Turku, Finland, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria; Copperfield Gallery, London; Stanley Picker Gallery, London; E-Werk, Freiburg, Germany and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany. Her films have screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam; FILMADRID; Sheffield Doc Fest and Sonic Acts, Amsterdam. She received the Jerwood/FVU Award 2018 and was the Stanley Picker Art & Design Fellow (2019–22). Her work was included in the British Art Show 9 (2021-22).

Photo of Maeve: Luana Rigolli; all photos courtesy of the artist

During his ‘Propel’ residency in London in spring/summer 2023, Alex Canonico created a series of works that were exhibited at Peckham Arches as part of his solo show ‘only just’. The show was presented by Knotenpunkt and curated by Jenn Ellis.

“With the prevalence of more, or less, there’s a rare precision to finding a balance; seeing and knowing when that indescribable ‘point’ has been met. Responding to space, place and language, Alexandre Canonico (b. 1974, Brazil) creates works, or rather visual annotations, that tend to elegant yet simple deconstructions & rearrangements. Marking Canonico’s first solo show in London, ‘only just’ at OHSH Peckham, curated by Jenn Ellis, brings together a new set of works completed during Knotenpunkt’s ‘Propel’ residency in London. Using found and discarded material, ‘only just’ is an exercise in response: to a place, to a set of parameters and a moment in time.

Intrinsic to each work is its materiality. As described by Canonico, ‘only just’ is composed of “work that looks upon its own making”. Each visual annotation is an assemblage of various everyday, discarded, found, reused elements, from cardboard to MDF board. The story of each is important, too: parts were found, others gifted, the whole an overall exercise in making use of what’s available to you. Distinctly, there is an emphasis on transparency: each work quite simply is what it is. Playful in arrangement and composition, it’s the balance of each and how it’s brought together that speaks to Canonico’s language.

Permeating ‘only just’ is a strong sense of exploration, especially around ‘negative’ space, what is in between or unseen. ‘Lambent dip’ (2023), for example, extends from the wall into the exhibition space. Reliant on its individual components, from the MDF board to an aluminium sheet and the wall it rests on, it makes use of the invisible tensions, pushes and pulls. ‘Cough’ (2023), in its composition of a metal strapping with protruding wooden dowels, reaches out beyond the delineations and contours of the sinuous central shape. Meanwhile ‘only just’ (2023), in its stacking and balancing, builds a relationship between the individual MDF components and their delicate precarity.

The exhibition is also a ground for new components and their incorporation into Canonico’s visual language. The metal strapping series, such as the diptych ‘Fun’ (2023), introduces carton, which brings pops of primary colour. The snippets of metal strap from this series extend and jump over to the work ‘Tool’ (2023), which serves through its title as a play on words, incorporating found and carved MDF along with sprayed cardboard. The possibilities of the latter are further explored in ‘Unfurl’ (2023) and ‘None the wiser’ (2023) that present layers and curves, a mixture of various densities, forms, and movement. Finally ‘Almost not’ (2023), composed of a spray painted cloth, broomstick and hooks, addresses a titular sense of reveal.

Set with precision in the space, the emphasis is on pace: the works’ presence but more crucially the time taken to observe, connect and jump between them. You are urged, at your own viewing beat, and that of the surrounding environment, to lean into the exhibition’s rhythm. ‘only just’ is not about filling or domineering an environment, it is about finding a balance with it. The work “operates as these volumes”, integrated vehicles for contemplating what’s there, and what is not. Like a pause in a musical score, or silence in a conversation, ‘only just’ is an exercise in visual expression and restraint. With reference back to the pervading notion of response, the works are ‘in conversation’ with, rather than simply being and existing.

Overall, ‘only just’ is an ongoing approach to conversing visually. Location, site and context-conscious, it’s a moment that goes beyond a strict exhibition. Crucially conveying Canonico’s nuanced language of sensitive observation and restraint it’s a rare and important consideration in a global prevalence of coated excess.”

• Jenn Ellis 

28 June – 22 July 2023

Opening: 28 June, 6-9 PM

OHSH, Peckham Arches, London SE15 5QN

Hear Alex talk about his residency here.

Alexandre Canonico (b. 1974, Pirassununga, Brazil) graduated in Architecture from the Faculdade de Belas Artes de São Paulo and from the post-graduate programme at the Royal Academy Schools in London. Drawing is at the core of Canonico’s practice. Sculptures, wall reliefs and installations play with the relationship between the drawing of the thing and the thing itself. His works are constructed through the articulation of lines, emptiness, colours, and distinctly abstract forms. Using a highly reduced palette of materials, the interdependence between the different parts that constitute the works and the marks of the gestures involved in their making reinforce their anti-illusionistic character.

Recent exhibitions include “only just”, Knotenpunkt in collaboration with OHSH, London (2023); “Tombo” (2023) and “Sol” (2022) at Marli Matsumoto Arte Contemporânea, São Paulo; “LUMA”, London (2023); “A casa é sua”, Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro (2022); “Cidade Mecânica”, Tropigalpão, Rio de Janeiro (2022); “Anderson Borba and Alexandre Canonico”, Kupfer, London (2021) as well as ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries’ at South London Gallery (2021), among others.

All photos: Robert Glowacki, courtesy of the artist

Murphy Yum was the recipient of a Knotenpunkt ‘Propel’ grant to support her residency at Wysing Arts Centre during the summer of 2023. Whilst at Wysing, Murphy created a short film entitled ‘Since I didn’t understand, I shuffled things around’.

She said: “This project documents my experiences in Privas, Ardèche, France. During my intermittent visits to this village, I have encountered a sensation of “false nostalgia” – a vague or manufactured memory or a nostalgic feeling triggered by images, even though I haven’t personally experienced them.

In February, I had the privilege of learning the technique of machine embroidery from my partner’s grandmother, Jaqueline. Observing her work slowly in front of the screen, accompanied by her cats and dog, sparked my interest. I found it intriguing to witness an elderly woman engaging in her own enjoyment, working at her own pace in front of a computer. To explore the texture of nostalgia, rather than false nostalgia, I captured intricate details of objects at Jaqueline’s place. I filmed the embroidery machine appearing to start and move on its own, as if it were a robot writing a poem. The film conveys the embroidery process with a sense of seriousness and extraordinary, yet raw, qualities.

The film delves into not only images that evoke timelessness and fictional nostalgia but also elements of the old, closed and slow. It encapsulates the essence of things that deserve to be savoured slowly, the tranquility of the night, the boredom of a dog, the cat’s floating hair, and even the presence of Asia grocery stores concealed within typical French fruit shops. Through this project, I document my journey in search of “false nostalgia” by capturing glimpses of shiny objects amidst the dust.”

Murphy Yum (b. 1994, Korea) grew up on the outskirts of Seoul. A 2021 graduate of Villa Arson in Nice, she currently works between France and Korea. Murphy works with everyday objects and machines that have a plastic exterior and appear easy to handle, such as household articles with motors and electric cradles. She pays close attention to the relationship between objects and users and seeks to transform them into something new and unexpected by repairing, dismantling, and assembling them in various installations. Through this empirical method, she creates an illusionary space where care and negligence coexist. Murphy also creates films and writes poetry.

All photos Lucy Rose Shaftain Fenner, courtesy of the artist and Wysing Arts Centre

Eloise collaborated with Propel for two iterations of her latest project, PressTracker, in 2020 and 2022, respectively.

“This project started as a way to record this quite overwhelming time, through collecting, even hoarding, newspapers from the earliest stages of the pandemic. I was able to pick up some of the plates that were used for printing which act as a kind of an indexical object from this time.” – Eloise Hawser, 2022

PressTracker is an experimental digital archive and series of sculptures exploring British newspapers over 500 days of lockdown. Eloise worked with over 1,000 British print newspapers published during the first phase of the COVID pandemic. She reconfigured these papers alongside discarded lithographic printing plates, re-making them into sculptural and 2D forms, thereby exploring their narrative, psychological and affective potential. PressTracker also considers the ‘decay cycle’ of news media; no more pronounced than in the printing process, which generates huge amounts of waste. Through each instance of PressTracker, Eloise is tracing the newspapers’ shifting forms of production, dissemination, and consumption in public life, re-situating it as a complex, and compelling, infrastructural phenomenon.

Eloise Hawser (b. 1985) is a conceptual sculptor and mixed media artist, living and working in London. She is currently a resident artist at Somerset House, and has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally. Her first UK solo institutional exhibition, Lives on Wire, was presented by the ICA in 2015. A major exhibition at Somerset House, By the deep, by the mark, followed three years later. Other shows include History of Nothing (White Cube, 2016), Weight of Data (Tate Britain, 2015), and Surround Audience (New Museum, New York, 2015). Her installation The Tipping Hall was presented at the Istanbul Biennial in 2019, before being exhibited at the Montpellier Contemporain (MO.CO.) in 2020. It was on display at Museum Tinguély, Basel, as part of the Territories of Waste exhibition in 2022. Works from Eloise’s PressTracker series were selected for The London Open 2022 and on display in the Whitechapel Gallery. Her works can be found in several institutional collections, including Tate Britain, and MUMOK, Vienna.

In recent years, Eloise’s work has increasingly focused on the infrastructures underpinning the news. In 2019, she created ‘A New Way to Set’, a night-walk of Fleet Street connecting vanished histories of the news industry with the street’s contemporary residents. In 2020, she was commissioned by Culture Mile to map the City of London’s rich heritage of news production. As part of the 2021 Royal Docks festival, she led a series of ‘walking workshops’ with community groups, investigating the relationship between local spaces and newspapers.

All photos: Gigi Gianella, courtesy of the artist

Tahmineh Monzavi is the recipient of Knotenpunkt’s first ‘Propel’ grant of 2024, supporting her 4-week residency at Delfina Foundation during March 2024.

Tahmineh is a documentary photographer focusing on social issues who lives and works in Tehran. She began her professional career in 2005 and has developed her own style across artistic and documentary photography, seeking out untold and hidden stories. During her residency at Delfina, Tahmineh will continue to work on her project called ‘Grape Garden Alley; A story of a women’s shelter’ – a space in Southern Tehran and its inhabitants which she documented between 2008 and 2012. She will use the residency to continue to collaborate with London-based curator Vali Mahlouji, founder of ‘Archaeology of the Final Decade’, a curatorial platform that recovers erased histories, to explore the contexts and sociological considerations within ‘Grape Garden Alley’.

Tahmineh Monzavi (b. 1988, Iran) holds a BA in Photography from Azad Art and Architecture University. In 2011 she received the Sheed Award for excellence in social documentary photography. Her work has been shown in institutions including Los Angeles County Museum of Art (USA), the Phoenix Art Museum (USA), MAXXI Museum, Rome (Italy), MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (Italy), Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (France), and Giorgi Leonidze Museum, Tbilisi (Georgia). Her work has received mentions in publications including the New York Times, Internazionale, Paris Match, the British Journal of Photography, Le Figaro, L’Oeil de la Photographie, and ELLE. She also works as a film director and producer.

Photo of Tahmineh: Knotenpunkt, all other photos: Tahmineh Monzavi courtesy of the artist

Emii Alrai is the recipient of a Knotenpunkt ‘Propel’ grant for her 2024/25 residency at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK.

Emii Alrai (b. 1993, Blackpool, UK) is an artist and trained museum registrar, whose multifaceted practice contends with material investigations in relation to memory, critique of the western museological structure and the complexity of ruins. Alrai’s work is primarily sculpture and installation driven, building objects and large-scale realms in relation to research which explores archaeology and the natural environments objects are excavated from. Her practice weaves oral histories together with inherited nostalgia and the details of language to question the legacies of Empire and the power of hierarchical structures to interrogate the static presence of history. Clay vessels, gypsum forms and steel armatures punctuate the labyrinth-like spaces Alrai creates, mimicking museum dioramas and romanticised visions of the past to delve into our notions of what is chosen to be remembered and what is lost to time.

Recent exhibitions include ‘Lithics’ (2024) at Quench Gallery, Margate, UK; ‘life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooooooooot’ (2024) at CCA Glasgow, UK; ‘Sutures’ (2022) a duo show with Eve Tagny at Visual Arts Centre, Clarington, CA; ‘Reverse Defense’ (2022), Workplace Foundation, Newcastle, UK; and ‘The High Dam’ (2020) at The Tetley, Leeds, UK. Alrai has a forthcoming solo exhibition with Maximillian William, London, UK.

All photos courtesy of the artist –

On mobile version of the website:

1. Portrait of Emii Alrai at Villa Medici, Rome, 2021
2. Emii Alrai, A Core of Scar – Future Collect Commission (detail), The Hepworth Wakefield, April 2022, photo: Michael Brzezinski

On desktop version of the website:

1. Reverse Defence, 2022, installation view at Workplace Foundation, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, photographed by Matt Denham
2. Ecdysis, 2021, installation view Staffordshire St, London, UK, photographed by Rob Davis
3. Emii Alrai preparing her show ‘Deposition Layer’ in Leeds, 2021

“Central to my arts practice is a process of letting go of what is becoming fixed, normative, and habitual, as an ongoing life force, looking towards unknown futures that hold their potential in present encounters.”

emilyn claid is the recipient of a Knotenpunkt ‘Propel’ grant for her 2024/25 residency at Wysing Arts Centre.

A queer artist in her 8th decade, emilyn’s performance work strides between live art and dance theatre. She performs, choreographs, collaborates, writes and teaches. Alongside this, she works as a Gestalt psychotherapist. During her residency in Wysing, emilyn is planning some creative dialogues with younger, queer performance artists, envisaging these meetings to be both process and product, while holding potential for something else to develop in the future.

emilyn claid’s career stretches back to the 1960s when she was a ballet dancer with the National Ballet of Canada and the 1970s when she was co-founder of experimental collective X6 Dance Space in London, a pioneering organisation for New Dance. In the 1980s she was artistic director of Extemporary Dance Theatre and in the 1990s choreographed for companies such as Phoenix and CandoCo. Working as an independent dance artist emilyn made and performed a series of iconic solo works in which she found an authentic voice as a lesbian-queer artist. emilyn is also an emeritus professor and a Gestalt psychotherapist and has recently published FALLING Through Dance and Life, (Bloomsbury 2021), a book that re- thinks Western culture’s physical, metaphorical, and psychological relationship to gravity. Working between live art and dance theatre, emilyn is currently touring a solo show ‘emilyn claid, UNTITLED’.

Images from ‘UNTITLED’ performances, all courtesy of the artist: first and second image photographed by Henri T, third image photographed by Dahlia Katz

All photos courtesy of the artist –

On mobile version of the website: Portrait of emilyn claid by Timothy Spain, next two images from a performance of ‘UNTITLED’ photographed by Henri T.

On desktop version of the website: Portrait of emilyn claid by Timothy Spain, next two images from a performance of ‘UNTITLED’ photographed by Ross Cheshire and Henri T., respectively.