Building Mythologies presents works by Betty C Fan, Dora Lam, Filippo Muzi Falconi, Leyla Borovalı and Myriame Dachraoui, following the fifth edition of Hands-on Residency. Curated by Senem Cagla Bilgin-Keys, the exhibition considers how inherited stories and cultural traditions continue to change through artistic interpretation. Drawing on experiences that range from personal memory to the histories embedded in materials, the five artists develop distinctly individual approaches to the exhibition's theme. Their works are presented at Siegfried Contemporary, in Andreas Siegfried's west London home, where his private collection has shared space with temporary exhibitions since 2012.
At Siegfried Contemporary, exhibitions take place in the west London home of Swiss art adviser and collector Andreas Siegfried. Since 2012, he has invited artists to present their work in rooms that also accommodate his own collection. The setting is personal, and deliberately so. Siegfried once described it as his "private projection space", a place where he can introduce artists he believes in and explore unexpected relationships between works. Visitors encounter art within the circumstances of everyday life, surrounded by objects that have accumulated their own histories. This November, the house welcomes Building Mythologies, the concluding exhibition of the fifth Hands-on Residency. The collaboration grew out of a shared interest in the possibilities of artistic exchange. Siegfried has often emphasised the importance of getting to know artists and understanding the ideas behind their work. As he put it in an interview with Julieta Schildknecht: "You need to start a dialog with the artist". It is a conviction that finds a natural counterpart in the Hands-on programme.
Founded as an online residency, Hands-on brings together artists who continue working in their own studios while participating in a six-week programme of critical discussion. Its fifth edition, held from 21 September to 1 November 2026, invited participants to consider the role of mythology in contemporary life. Through exchanges with curators and other practitioners, the artists examined ideas already present in their work and encountered perspectives drawn from different cultural backgrounds. The five participants were selected through an open call, with Senem Cagla Bilgin-Keys and Andreas Siegfried involved in the selection. Those based in London also visited Bassett Road during the residency, establishing an early connection with the exhibition space.
The exhibition is curated by Senem Cagla Bilgin-Keys, a London-based independent curator who founded Art Elsewhere in 2017. The platform develops exhibitions and collaborative projects with contemporary artists alongside its art advisory activities. Bilgin-Keys has worked extensively with questions of migration and cultural identity, paying particular attention to the ways social histories shape artistic expression. Her engagement with ecological thought also informs the present exhibition, in which materials and the natural environment become participants in the construction of meaning.
The title Building Mythologies suggests a process that is still underway. Myths endure because they can be retold, and what they communicate changes with the people who inherit them. Their influence extends beyond the familiar territory of gods and legendary figures. Family photographs acquire meaning through the circumstances in which they are preserved. A craft tradition may carry knowledge that was never written down. Even the way nature is understood reflects beliefs transmitted across generations. The artists approach these histories through their own experiences, often finding that what appears familiar becomes less certain on closer examination.
The artists' approaches to mythology differ considerably. In Lam's paintings, the historical photograph loses some of its apparent certainty; Dachraoui turns personal experience into a world populated by remembered and imagined figures. Borovalı's ceramics preserve the gestures of an inherited technique in an unfamiliar material. Muzi Falconi looks towards the spiritual relationships earlier cultures established with nature, while Fan gives memory a physical presence through sound.
These different interpretations are brought together by Bilgin-Keys in an exhibition that has developed through the residency's sustained exchanges. Its presentation at Siegfried Contemporary introduces another element: the particular character of a place where collecting and exhibiting have long been closely connected. For Siegfried, the experience of an artwork is shaped by its surroundings and by the encounters it makes possible. At Bassett Road, the ideas explored over six weeks find a shared physical setting, where the relationships between the works can be discovered anew.