Appendix | Index

Hypha Gallery 2, Sugar House Island, 107 High Street, E15 4QZ

PV: Thursday, 5th June 2025, 6 – 9pm

Open: 6th June – 12th July, Wednesday – Saturday, 12-6pm

 Appendix | Index is a group exhibition curated by Aram Masharqa featuring the work of ten artists living and working in London. The title borrows from the backmatter of books, and considers what kind of knowledge or sense is possible without the main body. The show is divided into two parts, and each work on display belongs to one or the other part.

Appendix leans into its ‘other’ meaning: the anatomical appendage. Instead of revealing knowledges which are latent within the body, Appendix imagines what kinds of knowledge could ever be possible inside those parts which are ‘extra’, ‘unnecessary’. The artists approach the appendix to varying degrees of literalism: overflowing bodies, found objects, a proliferation of office stationery, an excess of discarded materials, and so on.

Index centres on its nature as a list of small items which point towards larger wholes, owing to its ‘dextrous’, finger-pointing etymological root. These works gesture towards universal, intangible worlds – heritage, national memory, fate – by tracking movements on the minutely specific and personal scale. Integral to the index is the accident or coincidence, the thing which by itself is small, but which speaks to an entire world outside the horizon of our understanding.