That Which Grows in the Swamp is Swallowed by the Stomach

That Which Grows in the Swamp is Swallowed by the Stomach is an ongoing exhibition project initiated and coordinated by Andie Aylsworth and Keyannah Isaacs, which aims to invite new collaborators each year who share an interest in posthumanism, ecology, and material-led practice.

The first iteration of the exhibition series was presented as part of Central Saint Martins’ 2023 degree show, and the second was held at Hypha Studios in 2024. The upcoming exhibition will take place in SET Vauxhall’s project space on the 16th Floor as part of the SET Associate Members’ Programme, with Dani Smith joining the curatorial team to develop the exhibition alongside the project’s founders.

The exhibition draws on posthuman thought through material, bodily, and ecological thinking, considering the tension between organic and inorganic matter, as well as human and nonhuman agency. It resists fixed hierarchies and binaries, instead foregrounding entanglement, instability, and transformation.

This iteration places particular emphasis on materiality as a means of exploring these ideas. Through sensorial encounters and processes of material transformation, the exhibition considers how materials themselves shape perception, atmosphere, and our relationships to bodies, landscapes, and ecological systems.

Rather than positioning landscape as a passive backdrop to human experience, the exhibition considers landscape and body as mutually constitutive: porous, shifting, and continually shaping one another. Organic forms, found materials, and processes of transformation foreground the permeability between self and environment, inviting audiences to consider how bodies are embedded within wider ecological systems. In doing so, the exhibition offers temporary moments of displacement from everyday modes of perception, encouraging visitors to inhabit spaces of ritual, contemplation, and imaginative possibility.

While these ideas provide a conceptual framework for the exhibition, they are intended as points of departure rather than fixed themes. We are interested in how each participating artist approaches these ideas through their own material language and practice, and we welcome diverse interpretations that expand, challenge, or complicate the exhibition’s ongoing conversation.