Presented work on site
Exhibitions formed one of the four strands of the Shape-Shift output, staged by the SUGAR curators over the life of the project.
SUGAR · Projects
Shape-Shift
(2018—2022)
Shape-Shift was the long-form project series at the heart of SUGAR, a curatorial project presenting exhibitions, events, publications, and digital works. It unfolded across the SUGAR research period of 2018 to 2022.
- Format Exhibitions, events, publications, and digital works
- Period 2018—2022
- Context Part of the SUGAR curatorial project
The project
A series in constant transformation
Shape-Shift sat within a wider curatorial framework rather than standing alone. Its title reflected an approach built around change: a rolling programme of exhibitions, events, publications, and digital works presented under the SUGAR banner between 2018 and 2022.
Talks, gatherings, programmes
Events accompanied the exhibition programme, connecting practitioners and audiences around the questions the project was testing.
Printed and edited matter
Publications extended the research beyond the gallery walls, giving the Shape-Shift material a longer life and wider readership.
Online and screen-based output
Digital works were part of the same curatorial framing, allowing the project to reach audiences beyond its physical address.
Shape-Shift, 2018—2022
Part of the SUGAR curatorial project
Timeline
Where Shape-Shift sits
The dates below record the span of the project as documented on this site.
Shape-Shift is the long-form project series at the centre of SUGAR, a curatorial framework that brought together exhibitions, events, publications, and digital works. Rather than a single fixed exhibition, it unfolded as a rolling programme across the research period of 2018 to 2022, letting ideas develop, revise, and reappear over time. The project's structure allows each format to act as both an endpoint and a starting point, so that a publication, a talk, or an online work can extend a conversation opened elsewhere in the sequence.
The title itself signals the method: a shape-shifting series that never settles into a stable final form. Working within a curatorial framework rather than as a standalone show meant Shape-Shift could hold contrasting positions in view simultaneously, allowing research questions, artistic responses, and public programming to overlap. The result is an open-ended body of work whose logic lies in its continuity and variation, and in the way each new element reshapes how the earlier ones are read.
Presented in exhibitions, events, publications, and digital works, Shape-Shift treats each mode of display as an equal carrier of meaning. Gallery walls, discussion formats, printed matter, and online platforms each shape attention differently, and the project uses these differences deliberately. What emerges is a layered record of the SUGAR research period, in which the artwork and the surrounding discourse are given comparable weight and are allowed to inform one another across the four-year span.
Shape-Shift sits within the wider SUGAR curatorial project, a partnership of curators and directors working with artists and collaborators from a range of fields. That broader context matters: the series drew on the collective's shared reading of the site and its history, and on the institutional support that made sustained, multi-year programming possible. The outcome is a project that behaves less like a container for works and more like a process — one that remains open to interpretation and to the continued attention of its audience.
| Period | Description |
|---|---|
| 2018—2022 | SUGAR project research period, and the run of the Shape-Shift exhibition and event series. |
| 2018 | Opening year of the Shape-Shift series within the SUGAR timeline. |
| 2022 | Closing year of both the Shape-Shift series and the SUGAR research period. |
At a glance
Project strands
Four formats carried the Shape-Shift programme throughout the SUGAR project period.
- ExhibitionsGallery presentations staged by the SUGAR curators between 2018 and 2022.
- EventsProgrammes and gatherings running alongside the exhibition series.
- PublicationsPrinted and edited outputs carrying the research outward.
- Digital worksScreen-based works opening the project to online audiences.