ZEST Collective

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ZEST Collective

HI! We are ZEST, a new Southampton-based Art Collective! We are currently comprised of 20 artists and reside in studio spaces along Old Northam Road.

We have a new Arts Council England funded community project, 'Living Community Murals'! Follow us on:
Instagram -
TikTok - (posts coming soon!)
Twitter -

Website coming soon!

19/03/2024

Introducing new ZEST member: Lucie Smith

Lucie Smith’s practice is rooted in an exploration of the cycles and relationships that characterise the human condition, with a particular focus on memory, empathy and storytelling. Within these interrogations lies a deep fascination with traces and the overlooked.
Through a compulsive process of collecting, reproducing and curating archival material and objects, she brings together symbols that characterise a narrative which are remembered, imagined, or fragmented.
Works realise themselves through a range of mediums including intricate sculptures and immersive, cross-disciplinary installations, as well as paintings, photographs, stitch and paper-based works, drawings and poetic films.

06/03/2024

Last night we met our brand new members!
We are so excited you guys rock! 🪨🍋

29/02/2024

Join on the 23rd March (2:00-5:00) at for this year's wildflower workshop! Follow for regular updates and more!

23/01/2024

BIG NEWS!! 🤩🤩🤩

We’re incredibly excited to announce our success in securing an Arts Council England National Lottery Grant
!! This landmark funding will support ZEST’s development over the next 18 juicy months.

Thank you !

We also want to thank everyone who has supported and advocated for us through this application, particularly:

18/01/2024

INTRODUCING: ZEST Membership Application Form!

The Benefits:
🍋A share of ZEST’s reputation as a dynamic creative force in Southampton, supported by , Arts Council England + more!
🍋Employment opps during externally funded projects and paid commission opportunities
🍋A network of artists and local community members
🍋Group exhibitions, skills sharing workshops, reading groups and other exclusive ZEST-led activities
🍋Access to communal ZEST studio spaces and facilities for meetings, exhibitions and events.

Got what it takes to be a lemon? 🤔
🫡Willing to commit to meetings and events?
🫡Southampton-based or willing to work in the region?
🫡Over 21 and early on in your practice?
🫡Keen on community involvement?
🫡Got exciting and zesty ideas?

Find link in our bio to apply - application deadlines are 22nd February 2024! 🚀

13/01/2024

The mighty Ellen Gillett had a brilliant article published for yesterday, starting off 2024 the right way 💥

Covering all bases from:
- the work she does as Co-Director of ZEST,
- creating and facilitating the ever-exciting
- the potential of Southampton and all its arts army (shoutout )
- to how her own practice has and continues to flourish here

It’s super informative, and a great resource for what’s been popping off 👀
I have a sneaky suspicion that it’ll only get bigger and better from here 🍋 Happy 2024 everyone! ✨

Link is of course in the bio

08/12/2023

It’s been a huge year for ZEST and

We have had exhibitions and workshops all over Southampton and hope to do even more in the next year to come.
🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

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06/12/2023

put in a series of Zines for our recent exhibition HEAVY PRESENCE’

Fred Thornton
‘3 Years of Zines’

I started making zines in 2020 when expressing my feelings felt impossible as things kept changing and I watched my able-bodied, healthy peers value their whims more than chronically ill and disabled people’s lives. It’s still a lot to process as my disability has led to decreased mobility and becoming housebound. It’s hard to keep a place in the artistic community as people often forget about you when they don’t see you. These zines have been a way for me to process difficult feelings and carve out moments of joy. HEAVY PRESENCE feels ironic to me personally as I can’t be present.
Please take a moment to appreciate your ability to be present at an exhibition and consider those who, for a multitude of reasons, cannot be. If disability and chronic illness is anything it is a s**t tonne of personal admin and reminding people you exist.

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05/12/2023

.warner showed their film for our recent exhibition ’HEAVY PRESENCE’

Net Warner
‘Capture’

Capture looks at the ways we are able to sit inside nostalgia at any moment through our saved content. I am changed by what I can re-experience in the present.

My practice acts as an ongoing archive of my experiences, depicting my changing self. This archive dissolves the hierarchy of time and linear progression in my work and my life. In visualising the fluidity of identity and memory creation, the fusing of these clips creates a vision of my experiences as new.

It feels right to shine Capture onto the same walls that saw the beginnings of my artistic life after graduation. It feels right to celebrate the years that followed.

This film was initially commissioned for ‘a space’ art’s RIPE FIVE event in March 2023.

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04/12/2023

brought her ceramic work to our recent exhibition ’HEAVY PRESENCE’

Alex Sutherland
‘Autotomy’

This vase features a mix of imagery, which when read together tells the narrative of our detachment from The Alfred Arms.

One side shows The Alfred Arms pub while the other depicts a two faced creature.This creature references Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, endings and transitions. One face looks to the past, the other towards the future.

The faces taper down into two reptilian bodies. The tail belonging to the past, has been cut away by a key. The body of the future remains intact and wraps its tail around a different key.

As a child I went walking a lot with my parents. I was immersed in nature thanks to my Dad (a tough bloke who knows rather a lot about British wildlife).On one occasion we spotted a lizard, my Dad put his hands over the creature in an attempt to catch it. In doing so he karate chopped its tail off and I was mortified.

It was then that he explained to me how reptiles can detach their tails when they perceive a threat, he reassured me that they can grow a brand new tail that might even be better and shinier than the one they had to lose.

Zest made the decision to move away from Northam road, in doing so we parted ways with a building that felt like a piece of us. But the difficult detachment has led us to a new space, somewhere that fits perfectly.

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01/12/2023

took ‘HEAVY PRESENCE’ very literally and gave us this enormous foot

‘The Autonomous Foot’

The exhibition theme prompted recurring thoughts of enormous footprints. I materialised what might have made them: a very large foot! My sculptural foot is larger than life, because it needed to be. Sometimes, I feel I have little agency over what I make, it just happens, no matter what I plan to do, I’ve learned to go with the flow. Making this foot, in paper pulp, transforms waste newspapers; it feels environmentally right, as does using happy yellow paint, found in a dustbin pile. Yellow seems serendipitously very fitting for my first Zest exhibition because it’s a zesty colour.

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Address

SO14-SO19

Website

http://www.zestartscollective.com/

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