Innocent Rehearsal: Ball, Paper, Blade
Group show
HU Yinping, Jaffa LAM, Peter LIVERSIDGE, Moe SATT, Tromarama, Meng ZHANG
Tabula Rasa Gallery, Beijing
14 March – 30 April 2026
Group show
HU Yinping, Jaffa LAM, Peter LIVERSIDGE, Moe SATT, Tromarama, Meng ZHANG
Tabula Rasa Gallery, Beijing
14 March – 30 April 2026
Interview with Peter LIVERSIDGE
The following interview is conducted by curator Dr. Penny Dan Xu and artist Peter LIVERSIDGE as part of the group exhibition Innocent Rehearsal: Ball, Paper, Blade held at Tabula Rasa Gallery, Beijing.
Penny Dan Xu
Your path began at the University of Plymouth, where you noticed peers becoming obsessed with finding a "signature style". Why did you choose to rebel against this, and how did your early exposure to British absurdist humor and the subversive nature of live performance shape your decision to embrace so many different mediums?
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Wall Painting 2026, Coloured pencil, drawing instruments made of wood, Dimesions as installed, 2026
Penny Dan Xu
You have mentioned that your ideas often spring from ordinary daily life, such as the simple pleasure of eating an orange or kicking stones. How did you transition from being a "music-obsessed" teenager to a conceptual artist, and do you feel your practice still functions as a type of rehearsal for life beyond the studio?
Penny Dan Xu
The Wall Drawing in Beijing began as a proposal typed on your Olivetti Lettera 35, which you treat as a "sculptural intervention with the paper" rather than just text. Since you did not install this work yourself, how do you feel about the proposal acting as a set of invitations that allow a work to take on a physical life through the interpretation of others?
Penny Dan Xu
The Oxidised Painting pair in our exhibition explores pareidolia, but the materials themselves are designed to age and change colour over time. How does this physical breakdown or oxidation help you address the "impossible task" of trying to capture a moment that is in a constant state of flux?
While I was there, I noticed all this tarnished precious and semi-precious metal in friends’ homes and especially in thrift stores. It got me interested in how the material of an object—and potentially an artwork’s elements—are changed by the environment that object or surface finds itself in. The changes in the tarnished silver in these paintings are accelerated by the environment they’re in, and in Iceland that process is accelerated further by the sulphur content of the air that surrounds it.
The difference with the work being in Beijing is that the pair of paintings will subtly shift and change until they find an equilibrium with their surroundings. Like the proposal that first described this work, there is a reliance on a physical place or person to interact with the work to complete it. But story and narrative, however accurate, are just the origin—not the work. The work is evolving and not in stasis.
![]()
Oxidised Paintings 2016, Oxidising genuine silver leaf and size on canvas, 29.8 x 21 cm, 2016
Penny Dan Xu
You often describe yourself as "music-literate" rather than art-literate, listening to everything from drone and noise to contemporary classical in your studio. How does this deep immersion in sound influence the rhythm or "composition" of your conceptual practice and the underlying structure of your proposals?
For your project The Bridge at Tate Modern, you synchronized 500 voices to "hum" with the literal frequency of the building. Is there a similar kind of unspoken energy or communal vibration you hope to trigger in a gallery setting through your paintings and proposals, even when the audience is experiencing them in silence?
Penny Dan Xu
You’ve stated that your work is "solely about engagement" and is only completed in the viewer’s imagination. For the audience in China meeting your work for the first time, could you share an example of a proposal, perhaps something "unfeasibly fantastic" where the reader's interpretation is the most vital material?
![]()
Interview PETER LIVERSIDGE
Click here to download Interview
Image courtesy of the artist and Tabula Rasa Gallery,
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Peter LIVERSIDGE (b. 1973, Lincoln, UK) is a London-based conceptual and performance artist whose practice begins at his kitchen table, where he sits alone writing hand-typed proposals on an old manual typewriter. These pages outline a range of possible—and sometimes impossible—ideas for performances and artworks across nearly every medium. Each proposal exists first in Liversidge’s mind, then on the page, then in the imagination of the reader, and occasionally as a physical object or happening. In every case, the initial artwork is the bookwork that presents the collected ideas, allowing the reader to engage, curate, and interact with each concept one-on-one. Liversidge emphasizes that the creative process is as important as its realization: some proposals are enacted, while others remain only as text, all existing equally as part of the work.Major solo exhibitions and projects include Rules of the Library, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh (2026); Sign Painting Studio, Royal College of Nursing Library & Heritage Centre, London (2024); Winter Drawings and Spring Boats, Ingleby, Edinburgh (2023); Either/Or, Kate Macgarry Gallery, London (2022); Rural Time, East Quay Watchet, Somerset (2021); an echo, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2020); Topsy Turvy, Pavement Gallery, Manchester (2019); Out/Exit, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh (2018); and Proposals for Antarctica, UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, Cambridge (2016).
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Dr. Penny Dan XU is a London-based independent curator with over 13 years of experience across the globe’s major cultural hubs, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Milan, and Brussels. Holding a PhD in Art History, she is the founder of Across Platform, a non-profit community dedicated to scholarly research and independent knowledge production. In addition to her curatorial practice, she serves as an advisor to the art organization Baopu FELT. Her curatorial practice champions multi-layered collaborations between researchers, artists, and curators, fostering a dynamic synergy of diverse intellectual backgrounds. By navigating the intersections of disparate media and geographies, she seeks to ignite profound dialogues that transcend boundaries. She is the recipient of the 2025 Hyundai Blue Prize.
The following interview is conducted by curator Dr. Penny Dan Xu and artist Peter LIVERSIDGE as part of the group exhibition Innocent Rehearsal: Ball, Paper, Blade held at Tabula Rasa Gallery, Beijing.
Penny Dan Xu
Your path began at the University of Plymouth, where you noticed peers becoming obsessed with finding a "signature style". Why did you choose to rebel against this, and how did your early exposure to British absurdist humor and the subversive nature of live performance shape your decision to embrace so many different mediums?
Peter Liversidge
Hi Penny, many thanks for these questions, and for the invitation to show in Beijing. Reading through them, I’ve been reminded of a time and place where and how my thinking was shaped—and equally how it is still evolving. At that early point, I was leaving home, beyond the influence of family, friends, and my rural upbringing. At the time, I thought I’d eventually end up in London, so rather illogically, I chose to go to Exeter, which was one of the last independent art schools (it was amalgamated into the University of Plymouth in 1989, a few years before I went there). At the time, I was interested in the idea that I would probably not live in Exeter (this is really one of the main reasons I chose it!). It was also important that the head of the art school was heavily involved in the Erasmus exchange program, so I thought I would be able to travel in my second year—which I did, studying film, photography, and scriptwriting in Montana.
Not wanting to find a signature style felt like the right way to go when I was starting out, as I felt that the actual making of work was the important thing. I made the first proposals for a show in Dublin in 1997; it was a show where there wasn’t a budget for shipping. To circumvent that problem, I thought about describing the existing work that couldn’t be shipped, initially as spoken word, then as proposals for that work. That thought naturally morphed into the question of “…what if the work doesn’t exist at all…?” I became interested in the work not having to be physically there—or here, or anywhere. I imagined it like a story that’s passed on, becoming part of the teller as much as the original story.I thought of the work as performance as much as anything else. The immaterial nature of the work became vitally important: in description, it could be anything; in reality, it was always fixed, anchored to an object or material.
Hi Penny, many thanks for these questions, and for the invitation to show in Beijing. Reading through them, I’ve been reminded of a time and place where and how my thinking was shaped—and equally how it is still evolving. At that early point, I was leaving home, beyond the influence of family, friends, and my rural upbringing. At the time, I thought I’d eventually end up in London, so rather illogically, I chose to go to Exeter, which was one of the last independent art schools (it was amalgamated into the University of Plymouth in 1989, a few years before I went there). At the time, I was interested in the idea that I would probably not live in Exeter (this is really one of the main reasons I chose it!). It was also important that the head of the art school was heavily involved in the Erasmus exchange program, so I thought I would be able to travel in my second year—which I did, studying film, photography, and scriptwriting in Montana.
Not wanting to find a signature style felt like the right way to go when I was starting out, as I felt that the actual making of work was the important thing. I made the first proposals for a show in Dublin in 1997; it was a show where there wasn’t a budget for shipping. To circumvent that problem, I thought about describing the existing work that couldn’t be shipped, initially as spoken word, then as proposals for that work. That thought naturally morphed into the question of “…what if the work doesn’t exist at all…?” I became interested in the work not having to be physically there—or here, or anywhere. I imagined it like a story that’s passed on, becoming part of the teller as much as the original story.I thought of the work as performance as much as anything else. The immaterial nature of the work became vitally important: in description, it could be anything; in reality, it was always fixed, anchored to an object or material.
Wall Painting 2026, Coloured pencil, drawing instruments made of wood, Dimesions as installed, 2026You have mentioned that your ideas often spring from ordinary daily life, such as the simple pleasure of eating an orange or kicking stones. How did you transition from being a "music-obsessed" teenager to a conceptual artist, and do you feel your practice still functions as a type of rehearsal for life beyond the studio?
Peter Liversidge
That’s an interesting question. I think that the moment you’re in is the only moment you’re really present. It’s in the now, as I type this, that the keys transfer the letters, words, and sentences to the screen. But when you read this, you’re reading the past in the present. I think you might be right, in some way, that it is a rehearsal for the future—not as a guide, more as a mould you either have to fit, force your way out of, or shift into another shape in real time.
I think it’s similar for many artists in that the activity you’re involved in isn’t necessarily taking up all of your conscious thought. Often, I find that when I’m engaged in making work, I’m looking for (where possible) a non-thinking time, as the artist Rose Finn-Kelcey described so well—wanting “…to be an outsider in her own work.” It is something that I am also consciously unconscious of whenever I’m in the studio and struggling with something. It can be very tricky not to be afraid of making a mistake or a misstep. Periods of inactivity are so important for a conceptually led practice—there are no wrong turns in that way.
Music is a good way to focus in the studio—especially with the lure of other distractions, particularly the internet and social media, which suck up attention like a hoover does fine dust; it has no respect. I use the studio as an experimental space to look at and explore materials and situations for those materials. …I still am music-obsessed, by the way.
That’s an interesting question. I think that the moment you’re in is the only moment you’re really present. It’s in the now, as I type this, that the keys transfer the letters, words, and sentences to the screen. But when you read this, you’re reading the past in the present. I think you might be right, in some way, that it is a rehearsal for the future—not as a guide, more as a mould you either have to fit, force your way out of, or shift into another shape in real time.
I think it’s similar for many artists in that the activity you’re involved in isn’t necessarily taking up all of your conscious thought. Often, I find that when I’m engaged in making work, I’m looking for (where possible) a non-thinking time, as the artist Rose Finn-Kelcey described so well—wanting “…to be an outsider in her own work.” It is something that I am also consciously unconscious of whenever I’m in the studio and struggling with something. It can be very tricky not to be afraid of making a mistake or a misstep. Periods of inactivity are so important for a conceptually led practice—there are no wrong turns in that way.
Music is a good way to focus in the studio—especially with the lure of other distractions, particularly the internet and social media, which suck up attention like a hoover does fine dust; it has no respect. I use the studio as an experimental space to look at and explore materials and situations for those materials. …I still am music-obsessed, by the way.
Penny Dan Xu
The Wall Drawing in Beijing began as a proposal typed on your Olivetti Lettera 35, which you treat as a "sculptural intervention with the paper" rather than just text. Since you did not install this work yourself, how do you feel about the proposal acting as a set of invitations that allow a work to take on a physical life through the interpretation of others?
Peter Liversidge
The wall drawing works are always made in collaboration, either by instruction with me present or, as they were done with you at Tabula Rasa Gallery in Beijing, by instruction and interpretation of that instruction by a third party. Universally, they are always improved by that collaboration. Inviting a collaborator to make the work, alongside simple instructions as to how it should be made, gives me an opportunity to be outside of that process and to see the work anew—potentially as a visitor might.
By inviting those who make the work to take full responsibility for it, it inevitably opens up questions about authorship and originality: who is, and who should be, responsible for a work, and who completes it or decides when it is finished?
The wall drawing works are always made in collaboration, either by instruction with me present or, as they were done with you at Tabula Rasa Gallery in Beijing, by instruction and interpretation of that instruction by a third party. Universally, they are always improved by that collaboration. Inviting a collaborator to make the work, alongside simple instructions as to how it should be made, gives me an opportunity to be outside of that process and to see the work anew—potentially as a visitor might.
By inviting those who make the work to take full responsibility for it, it inevitably opens up questions about authorship and originality: who is, and who should be, responsible for a work, and who completes it or decides when it is finished?
Penny Dan Xu
The Oxidised Painting pair in our exhibition explores pareidolia, but the materials themselves are designed to age and change colour over time. How does this physical breakdown or oxidation help you address the "impossible task" of trying to capture a moment that is in a constant state of flux?
Peter Liversidge
Thinking about being in the present, I am interested in how work has a right to evolve. Think of objects from classical antiquity: in museum presentations, they are fixed—but are those fixed scenarios accurate, or born from audience involvement? Isn’t everything other than the present guesswork? I have a distinct memory of how these paintings came about, from a conversation I had with the gallerist Börkur Arnarson, who is in Reykjavik, Iceland. I was a guest there, working on a solo show at Börkur’s gallery, i8. Inevitably, at some point we were talking about the weather, and the subject of free city-wide geothermal heating came up; then under-pavement geothermal heating came up. This led to a mention of the higher sulphur content of the air.
Thinking about being in the present, I am interested in how work has a right to evolve. Think of objects from classical antiquity: in museum presentations, they are fixed—but are those fixed scenarios accurate, or born from audience involvement? Isn’t everything other than the present guesswork? I have a distinct memory of how these paintings came about, from a conversation I had with the gallerist Börkur Arnarson, who is in Reykjavik, Iceland. I was a guest there, working on a solo show at Börkur’s gallery, i8. Inevitably, at some point we were talking about the weather, and the subject of free city-wide geothermal heating came up; then under-pavement geothermal heating came up. This led to a mention of the higher sulphur content of the air.
While I was there, I noticed all this tarnished precious and semi-precious metal in friends’ homes and especially in thrift stores. It got me interested in how the material of an object—and potentially an artwork’s elements—are changed by the environment that object or surface finds itself in. The changes in the tarnished silver in these paintings are accelerated by the environment they’re in, and in Iceland that process is accelerated further by the sulphur content of the air that surrounds it.
The difference with the work being in Beijing is that the pair of paintings will subtly shift and change until they find an equilibrium with their surroundings. Like the proposal that first described this work, there is a reliance on a physical place or person to interact with the work to complete it. But story and narrative, however accurate, are just the origin—not the work. The work is evolving and not in stasis.
Oxidised Paintings 2016, Oxidising genuine silver leaf and size on canvas, 29.8 x 21 cm, 2016You often describe yourself as "music-literate" rather than art-literate, listening to everything from drone and noise to contemporary classical in your studio. How does this deep immersion in sound influence the rhythm or "composition" of your conceptual practice and the underlying structure of your proposals?
Peter Liversidge
In the phrasing of your question, you refer to “rhythm,” and that, to me, is a key part of the work—the writing and its connection to music. In the written version of the work, there are many ways for a set of notes or text to be interpreted or presented, but the actual work, in the case of the proposals, is always in the text or in the “notes.” It is there that the work resides.
The interpretation—however permanent or, for that matter, transient—is the moment in which the work exists. It is in the moment that an individual or audience experiences the work that this non-permanent state becomes real; that is where the work resides. The pianist Rachel Grimes described it best when she described the proposals pre-exhibition as scores yet to be played, by an unknown performer with an unknown instrument.
Penny Dan XuIn the phrasing of your question, you refer to “rhythm,” and that, to me, is a key part of the work—the writing and its connection to music. In the written version of the work, there are many ways for a set of notes or text to be interpreted or presented, but the actual work, in the case of the proposals, is always in the text or in the “notes.” It is there that the work resides.
The interpretation—however permanent or, for that matter, transient—is the moment in which the work exists. It is in the moment that an individual or audience experiences the work that this non-permanent state becomes real; that is where the work resides. The pianist Rachel Grimes described it best when she described the proposals pre-exhibition as scores yet to be played, by an unknown performer with an unknown instrument.
For your project The Bridge at Tate Modern, you synchronized 500 voices to "hum" with the literal frequency of the building. Is there a similar kind of unspoken energy or communal vibration you hope to trigger in a gallery setting through your paintings and proposals, even when the audience is experiencing them in silence?
Peter Liversidge
I think there is a similar exchange in the ‘looking at’ and the ‘experiencing of’ an artwork, for both you have to be present and not experience it in a mediated way. The choral work and the exchange between performer and audience and where they meet is the interesting part of that exchange for me. The work in the show is much more static than the choral work for Tate Modern, but they both share the intention to engage and be engaged with.
I think there is a similar exchange in the ‘looking at’ and the ‘experiencing of’ an artwork, for both you have to be present and not experience it in a mediated way. The choral work and the exchange between performer and audience and where they meet is the interesting part of that exchange for me. The work in the show is much more static than the choral work for Tate Modern, but they both share the intention to engage and be engaged with.
Penny Dan Xu
You’ve stated that your work is "solely about engagement" and is only completed in the viewer’s imagination. For the audience in China meeting your work for the first time, could you share an example of a proposal, perhaps something "unfeasibly fantastic" where the reader's interpretation is the most vital material?
Peter Liversidge
In this proposal from 2017, which was written for my solo show at Bonniers Konsthall, the time leading up to the reading of the proposal becomes the work for the reader or viewer.
In this proposal from 2017, which was written for my solo show at Bonniers Konsthall, the time leading up to the reading of the proposal becomes the work for the reader or viewer.
Interview PETER LIVERSIDGE
Click here to download Interview
Image courtesy of the artist and Tabula Rasa Gallery,
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Peter LIVERSIDGE (b. 1973, Lincoln, UK) is a London-based conceptual and performance artist whose practice begins at his kitchen table, where he sits alone writing hand-typed proposals on an old manual typewriter. These pages outline a range of possible—and sometimes impossible—ideas for performances and artworks across nearly every medium. Each proposal exists first in Liversidge’s mind, then on the page, then in the imagination of the reader, and occasionally as a physical object or happening. In every case, the initial artwork is the bookwork that presents the collected ideas, allowing the reader to engage, curate, and interact with each concept one-on-one. Liversidge emphasizes that the creative process is as important as its realization: some proposals are enacted, while others remain only as text, all existing equally as part of the work.Major solo exhibitions and projects include Rules of the Library, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh (2026); Sign Painting Studio, Royal College of Nursing Library & Heritage Centre, London (2024); Winter Drawings and Spring Boats, Ingleby, Edinburgh (2023); Either/Or, Kate Macgarry Gallery, London (2022); Rural Time, East Quay Watchet, Somerset (2021); an echo, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2020); Topsy Turvy, Pavement Gallery, Manchester (2019); Out/Exit, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh (2018); and Proposals for Antarctica, UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, Cambridge (2016).
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Dr. Penny Dan XU is a London-based independent curator with over 13 years of experience across the globe’s major cultural hubs, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Milan, and Brussels. Holding a PhD in Art History, she is the founder of Across Platform, a non-profit community dedicated to scholarly research and independent knowledge production. In addition to her curatorial practice, she serves as an advisor to the art organization Baopu FELT. Her curatorial practice champions multi-layered collaborations between researchers, artists, and curators, fostering a dynamic synergy of diverse intellectual backgrounds. By navigating the intersections of disparate media and geographies, she seeks to ignite profound dialogues that transcend boundaries. She is the recipient of the 2025 Hyundai Blue Prize.
Tabula Rasa Gallery (London)
Unit One, 99 East Road,
Hoxton, London
N1 6AQ
Unit One, 99 East Road,
Hoxton, London
N1 6AQ
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