‘Firm Like Water’
Curated by Magdalyn Asimakis
Presented by Cooper Cole and Mason Studio
Photography is central to Serapis’ work. Found and created images of water, ships, workers, and maritime bric-a-brac are recurring motifs throughout the collective’s artwork, exhibitions, and clothing, seamlessly flowing between disciplines without material boundaries. This interdisciplinary practice acts as a meditation on the artificiality of borders and the structures that attempt to interact with the unfixed nature of water.
‘Firm Like Water’ embraces the ethos of Serapis. Leaning into the malleable boundaries of the collective’s works and subject matter, this exhibition presents photography in a number of atypical registers, reflecting the ethos of Mason Studio and Cooper Cole’s cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Serapis is an Athens-based multidisciplinary collective that takes their inspiration from water—oceans and seas, their slipperiness, and their interaction with human-made infrastructures. The collective describes their practice as a “multimedia ocean-themed novel.” Their interest in expanding and exceeding boundaries constitutes an interdisciplinary output across art, design, and fashion, and their fascination with water acts as an extension of this liquidity; their watery subject matter spills across media.
Serapis as a hybrid art, design, and fashion collective creates work inspired by the aura of the oceans and the industries related to the sea. It aims towards an expansion of the boundaries of artistic production and distribution and functions like a multimedia, ocean-themed novel. This artistic production can also be read as a contemporary seascape. They have exhibited at numerous galleries and created public art projects across Greece, Italy, and Lebanon, and their fashion can be found in e-commerce stores.
