Conviction Fair

curated by
Zhen Feng Ang

Unit 3, Euston Tower, 286 Euston Road, NW1 3DP
PV: 3rd July, 6 – 9pm

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Open: 4th July – 9th August 2025, Thursday – Sunday, 12 – 6pm

In an era where truth is fragmented, Conviction Fair delves into the labyrinth of contemporary belief systems, examining how one constructs reality amid rampant media distrust and contradictory information streams. Through mixed-media works by seven artists, the exhibition unpacks the coping mechanisms to navigate conflicting systems of persuasion and uncertainty.

Borrowing from the imagery of a marketplace, Conviction Fair imagines beliefs, ideals, and personal truths as commodities to be consumed, exchanged, or discarded in a concept-driven economy. Today’s information landscape resembles a crowded fair, where every vendor shouts to be heard. Just as every London restaurant claims ‘authentic’ cuisine and every booth at the fair insists on having the ‘best’ goods, information and idea sources compete for our conviction. Rather than offering clarity, this environment overwhelms with persuasive messages: authenticity becomes branding, and conviction becomes a limited resource under constant demand.

The works address three main aspects: the symbolisms that shape perspective; environmental cues that guide collective compliance; and the ongoing adaptation required in a rapidly shifting era. Here, conviction is less about fixed certainty and more about the performance of making sense of the world.

Set against the backdrop of a post-truth landscape, where emotions and pre-existing beliefs often precede factual accuracy, the exhibition highlights the cultural and political conditions that influence how information is crafted, contested, and consumed into a personal truth, with Donald Trump’s return and AI-generated deepfake content serving as one of many symptoms of this shifting landscape. Drawing on theorist Chantal Mouffe’s conception of public space as inherently conflictual, the exhibition reflects on how ideological struggle shapes not only political discourse but also personal meaning-making. In the absence of clarity, and under the pressure to act, viewers are left to reckon with the “belief-action gap”, the gap between what one claims to value and what one does.

Featuring new works by Ka Chun Chung, Amelia Akiko Frank, Jonah Hoffman, Natalya Marconini Falconer, Poppy O’Brien, Roman Sheppard Dawson, and Alexander Tarasenko, the exhibition positions the artists as exhibitors in a fairground. Visitors are invited to test and toy with the increasingly fragmented and unstable systems of belief.

Ka Chun Chung
Amelia Akiko Frank
Jonah Hoffman
Natalya Marconini Falconer
Poppy O’Brien
Roman Sheppard Dawson
Alexander Tarasenko