Fungus Press Residency: Cultural Field

Fungus Press invites artists, designers and writers to respond to Croydon’s public spaces through a series of newly commissioned billboard artworks for Wandle Park’s community garden and pond, Park Hill Park’s walled garden, and Reeves Corner. Launching during the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 competition, Turf Projects presents a new series of billboard artworks by Rosa-Johan Uddoh across these 3 sites, featuring documentation of Uddoh’s live performance work ‘Cultural Field’, an interdisciplinary performance that staged the first meeting of fictional 5 a-side football teams ANTI-CAPITALIST UTD and CAPITALIST CITY on the Hackney Marshes, London, in 2020.

Captured by photographer Anne Tetzlaff in 2020, the play-off between CAPITALIST CITY and ANTI-CAPITALIST UNITED for the Cultural Field Cup is a non-scripted game of football, played by a mixture of performance artists and grassroots football players. Through pantomime-like role play and healthy competition, they explore ‘play’ as a way of sharing knowledge about the enclosure of the commons in the UK, present-day gentrification, and the ongoing exclusion of women, non-binary and trans footballers from English football pitches. New captions by Uddoh describing each scene provide a commentary on the fraught interests that determine who has access to space, connecting the concerns of ‘Cultural Field’ and its presentation in public green spaces in Croydon.

‘Cultural Field’ is the subject of a new film directed by Jos Bitelli and Louis Brown for East London Cable, which will premiere at Turf Projects in September 2022. Read more about the project here.

Curated by independent curator Jessie Krish in partnership with Turf Projects. Generously supported by Arts Council England, Central Saint Martins, and Liverpool John Moores University.