To Remain: It’s Just a Matter of Time is an open call for submissions to recently graduated international students whose leave is imminent due to the recent changes in immigration policy by the UK Home Office – the closing of the Tier 1 (Post-Study Work) visa on 6 April 2012 which had allowed non-EU graduates to live and work in the UK for up to two year after graduation. The exhibition features the belongings of these artists – art objects or otherwise – that are to remain. These are things that have the potential to connect two imposed divisions between those who must leave and those who stay. The participating artists have offered an artwork or object and a short text describing their relationship with the object and how they want to leave the object behind (for a price, free or by exchange). This project will serve as a remembrance to the artists’ time in the UK as well as a platform for the objects’ continuing narrative, seeking to enquire into how personal stories and cultural/ economic values become inscribed in these objects.

Panel Discussion / 6pm-7pm : A short talk by Manick Govinda (Head of Artists’ Advisory Services and a Producer at Artsadmin) – ‘How British immigration policy is crippling artistic exchange?’ and Dr Ludovic Coupaye (Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at University College London) – ‘Displaced ‘Remains’: Musing on Artefacts in the Ethnographic Collections of UCL’ will lead into a group discussion.

This will be followed by an opening reception.