For Oxford’s three-day contemporary art gathering DEPOT Fusion is presenting a new Small Publishers and the return of FOCUS, this year shaped around the evolving project Xeno-space.
Xeno-space is an experimental, evolving project hosted within Depot, a three-day contemporary art event in Oxford, created through a unique collaboration between artist-led commercial galleries, independent artists, specialist art fair platform ARTSVP, and the Oxford-based arts charity Fusion Arts.
Xeno-space explores art as knowledge-making, where boundaries are challenged, and ideas, objects and sounds interact in a space of flux.
Drawing ideas from Sarat Maharaj’s 2002 essay, “Xeno-epistemics: Makeshift Kit for Sounding Visual Art as Knowledge Production and the Retinal Regimes”, Xeno-space presents an experimental time and space. It aims to disrupt the logic of discipline orientated knowledge, connoisseurship, market forces and the figure of artistic genius by offering visitors to experience a space of disobedience, resistance and activation. Xeno-space was developed in dialogue with 2024 Focus artists Valerie Asiimwe Amani, Jermaine Francis, and Sunil Shah.
Curated by Shah, it builds on his PhD research, proposing a space of coexistence and conversation that nurtures multiple perspectives, or as Maharaj puts it, “other ways of knowing and ways of knowing otherness.” It attempts to expand the boundaries of what a gallery or art fair can offer.
The space will be active throughout the event with workshops, live events, and sonic/visual interventions. A small publisher’s bookshop, featuring experimental forms of publishing, will also be integrated into Xeno-space through events and workshops.
Including work by Marcel Top and Ismael Rodriguez, which will form the cornerstones of the space, alongside traces and interventions from Valerie Asiimwe Amani, Jermaine Francis, and Sunil Shah that extend themes and ideas from the 2024 edition. The programme also features workshops led by Rob Shuttleworth and Julia Utreras, generating new collective works within the space. Moving and shifting throughout the event, the space will also host a series of talks and in-conversations, adding to the richness of its possibilities.
SMALL PUBLISHERS SHOP at DEPOT
New for 2025, DEPOT introduces a shop dedicated to small publishers and artists’ books. With a focus on independence and experimentation, the shop will feature publications from Fieldnotes, Prototype, TACO!, If A Leaf Falls, Montez Press, IZZA Books, and Tenement Press.
WORKSHOPS & EVENTS PROGRAMME
A programme of readings, performances, and workshops will invite people to take part directly in both strands — the publishing and the artistic practices on show as part of the Xeno-space.
Friday 26 September
11:00am - 9:00pm: Open to public
2:00 - 5:00pm: Unprecious Instrument workshop with artist Rob Shuttleworth (this is a Fusion workshop)
6:40 - 7:30pm: Unprecious Instrument performances and readings in collaboration with small publishers’ book shop.
7:30 - 9:00pm: Stanley Donwood catalogue signing
Saturday 27 September
11:00am - 8:00pm: Open to public
11.30am-3.30pm: Drop-in Zines and Poster workshop with Julia Utreras (Common Press). Using prompts to respond to artworks in Xeno-space, participants can make posters, add to a collective artwork, or create a zine drawing inspiration from the shop’s publications.
Sunday 28 September
12:00pm - 4:00pm: Open to public
2:00 - 3:00pm: Xeno-space Closing Conversation. Facilitated by Sunil Shah, this informal gathering brings together the curator and some of the collaborating artist to reflect on the artworks, prompts, and workshops that have unfolded over the course of the event.
DEPOT opening hours
Fri 26 Sept, 11am – 9 pm
Sat 27 Sept, 11am – 8 pm
Sun 28 Sept, 12pm - 4 pm
Fusion Arts, 15 Park End Street, Oxford, OX1 1HH
Free, please book your ticket
