“A safe, protective, spiritual space:” A conversation with curators Gemma Rolls-Bentley and E-J Scott about the new exhibition Talisman

A view of the Talisman (2025) exhibition on display. Photo courtesy of Christa Holka. Courtesy of Cardion Arts, UK.

BY EMMA CIESLIK July 16, 2025

Cardion Arts’ annual group exhibition for 2025, Talisman is a group exhibition of LGBTIQA+ artists, presented in collaboration with the Museum of Transology, that considers the objects, people and symbols we turn to, in order to keep us safe. The exhibition explores queer spirituality and supernatural spaces and objects, alongside hurt and healing, bodily sanctity, and the LGBTIQA+ community’s capacity to protect and defend itself. It asks artists from across the UK to create and foster a space of collective sanctuary and protective power during times of anti-LGBTIQA+ governmental action and state-sanctioned violence, including the UK high court decision this past April arguing trans women are not women. 

This exhibition features artists Karina Akopyan, Niya B, Jonathan Baldock, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Claye Bowler, KV Duong, Eva Dixon, Jesse Darling, Dudley Dream Walsh, Luke Edward Hall, Lubaina Himid, Erin Holly, Kasra Jalilipour, Wayne Lucas, Richard Maguire, Emily Pope, Prem Sahib, Zach Toppin, Emily Witham, Ajamu X, Osman Yousefzada, alongside objects from the Museum of Transology. The Museum of Transology has the largest collection of objects documenting the experiences of trans, nonbinary, and intersex lives in the world, and just closed their latest 10-year retrospective exhibition TRANSCESTRY in May. 

Ahead of the exhibition, I sat down with curators Gemma Rolls-Bentley and E-J Scott to learn more about the power of exploring and displaying objects and symbols during a time of crisis for the LGBTIQA+ community, and the possibilities of queer spiritual joy and liberation. Talisman opened at The Art Academy in London, UK on July 4th. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Cieslik: Would you mind introducing yourself however you feel comfortable?

Rolls-Bentley: I’m Gemma Rolls-Bentley. I am a curator and a writer, and last year, I helped set up the non-profit Cardion Arts. The group of people behind Cardion Arts first came together in Summer 2024 to present an exhibition in London called Ultraviolet. Based on the overwhelming response to the exhibition and our events, we decided to create an organisation. The mission for Cardion Arts is to champion LGBTIQA+ artists, to program events that foster a sense of belonging for our community, and raise vital funds for akt (formerly The Albert Kennedy Trust), who are the leading UK charity supporting queer and trans young people facing homelessness. 

Scott: I’m E-J Scott, and I’m the curator of the Museum of Transology and co-director of the Trans Pride Collective UK and Ireland. I was invited by Gemma to co-curate the exhibition Talisman this year, and it felt like a very natural fit with the shared values between our organizations -  both being non-profit and both being engaged with serving the LGBTIQA+ community and giving our community visibility and voice. We’ve got young community curators from the Museum of Transology also engaging with the project on every level: the build, the installation, the photography and the hang. This means we’ve got members of the community involved at every stage of the process and in every role, including both artists and curators. 

Queer Power, Museum of Transology. Photo courtesy of @henritartist.

Above a birthing new world (2025), by Erin Holly. Oil on canvas. 144 x 188 cm. Photo by Tanya Moulson.

Cieslik: What sparked this exhibition?

Rolls-Bentley: Central to the Cardion Arts’ program is an annual group exhibition. This year’s exhibition Talisman brings together a group of artists whose work considers the symbols, objects, and people that we turn to, to keep us safe. In the UK and wider world right now, we are experiencing increasingly challenging times, and so the notion of a talisman and safety feels ever more urgent and poignant. 

It’s been really exciting to see how the artists have responded to the theme and the pieces of work that people have submitted. I think it speaks to the resilience of our community, the power of queer creativity, and the radical and hopeful thinking that comes from the community that birthed our organizations and the works that we have been lucky enough to include in these exhibitions. 

Cieslik: Why is it important to visualize how our communities protect ourselves and each other?

Scott: I think particularly in the UK at the moment, the trans community is under attack, so using art and culture to do its best work, using our voice and enabling us to be empowered is timely, but also powerful. We need to find joy within our communities to build the resilience to be able to survive. The enthusiasm with which the artists have come forward to engage with this show, including many trans artists, has actually been a complete joy. I think that we’re going to find that the community itself is going to engage with it as a space that is about and for them. 

Rolls-Bentley: One thing I would add to that, something that I am becoming increasingly convinced of through my own work, is that art is often the most powerful, or even the only way, of articulating some of our feelings, experiences, and our views. I think that’s true of all artists--creative forms can be the most successful language available to us, but particularly for queer and trans artists. As E-J said, the conversation around the trans experience has become so divisive. It can be very difficult for people to have a conversation that feels constructive. Art can be a really important vehicle for bringing people together, sharing different perspectives, and finding common ground and empathy. 

Necromancer’s pants (2024), by Karina Akopyan. Ink and watercolors on watercolor paper. 31 x 39 cm (unframed size). Photo courtesy the artist.

Cieslik: What does queer protection look like, and how are histories of protection and advocacy represented in intergenerational ways in this exhibition?

Scott: It’s a really good question because our exhibition is intergenerational and we also use the word “intergenderational”. There’s a great example of this-a set of four toilet doors by artist Wayne Lucas. He’s a mature gay man who lived through the AIDS crisis in Britain in the 1980s, and his first experience of knowing that there were other queer men like him was when he came across the really harsh anti-AIDS graffiti that was carved into public toilet doors. This  was a mixed experience for him, because he talks about the fact that even though it felt dangerous and aggressive, it was also a place where he understood that there were people like him out there. 

Wayne has recreated these spaces using found public toilet doors which he painted in the original colour that he blended from memory, then he carved the graffiti that he recalled  into the doors and hand embroidered glory holes he’s punched into the wood it in a dozen beautiful shades of pink wool, and filled the letters of the slurs that he’s scratched harshly into the wood with gold leaf. The ultimate effect is that the nastiness is counterbalanced by really very beautiful, very gentle touches.

Wayne’s point with recreating the graffiti is not only to reclaim autonomy, but also for the viewer to be able to engage with the nuances of  this danger. The tangible object also protects by explaining-particularly to the trans generation who are experiencing the same media hysteria at the moment as gay men endured throughout the AIDS crisis--that our communities are actually joined together by this history. He’s passing down this lesson of hope by saying we have shared experiences and we’ve made it through this all before and have come out on the other side and we will make it through this crisis as well.

I think it’s a remarkably sensitive way to cross over from the G [gay] to the T [trans in LGBTIQA+] as a way of counterbalancing any community riffs, without having to lecture anyone. He’s using art to pass down the queer history of hisgeneration to the next generation of young queer people who are missing this knowledge with the digitisation of queer cruising culture, employing artistic expression to locate a shared intergenerational experience that talks across time and to empower each other as we learn from a history of survival through these pieces of work. 

Cieslik: What does a safe world for queer and trans people look like as visualized in this exhibition but also for you both and the people who you hope visit the exhibition?

Scott: A queer and trans art gallery!

Rolls-Bentley: Yes, for a start, this exhibition is a beautiful safe space that is bringing a lot of people together. I would like to live in a world in which people aren’t interfering in other people’s toileting behaviors--that would be a nice start. I think, really, we need people to be left alone to be able to live their lives. When it comes down to it, all queer and trans people want to do is to be able to live and thrive, and that is what is being made impossible these days. An exhibition that celebrates differences and helps people learn to celebrate themselves in the face of some of this terrible oppression and marginalization is what we need in order to move on and build together. 

Scott: It’s Pride Month here in London, and then we move into Trans Pride Month. This moment of public visibility emphasises that the beauty of our culture throughout time and history has been that we don’t just want to fit in, we want the freedom to express ourselves. Freedom of expression is the essential element of liberation for our community. We want to be fabulous. We don’t want to make excuses. We don’t want to simply be ‘accepted’. We want to be queer and trans. We will celebrate who we are, and that’s what this exhibition does: it’s about us being visible on our own terms, it’s about us creating beauty, about us speaking up in these awful times, it’s the vibrancy of our culture that we’re celebrating. We’re not trying to have polished politicians allow us to ‘be’. That’s simply not enough. We want to be who we are, we want to be proud and beautiful and non-apologetic. Straight people everywhere want to be part of queer culture at Pride because it’s so amazing. So it’s about fighting back on our own terms. 

Rolls-Bentley: Also thinking about the safety part of your question– a safe world for queer and trans people is a world in which we are not constantly having to think about our safety.

INTENT (2025), by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Ink on paper, acrylic frame, aluminum fixings. 48 x 35.5 x 3.5 cm Crop. Courtesy the artist and Public Gallery, London.

A view of the Talisman (2025) exhibition on display. Photo courtesy of Christa Holka.

Cieslik: Can you highlight one piece each that speaks to you and why it’s significant to this exhibition?

Rolls-Bentley: Oh, gosh, it’s honestly so hard because there’s so much beautiful work in this show. One piece I will mention is Emily Witham’s. Witham has made a large stretched leather piece with embroidery and rivets that’s about lesbian identity, specifically butch-fem lesbian identity. Emily has been a really important part of the lesbian scene in London for a long time. She’s an activist, she’s involved in the London Dyke March and helps run a night called Butch Please. She’s a key part of the community, and as we’ve seen with this Lesbian Renaissance of the last couple of years, figures like Emily have been pivotal in creating spaces for people and building visibility. So much of Emily’s work involves thinking about those connections with history, paying tribute to our ancestors, recognizing that the lives we live today are because of the sacrifices and fights of those who came before us. So much of today’s lesbian culture and fashion pays tribute to the lesbian culture of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. It feels really important to recognize and remember that. 

The work she’s made is monumental in scale and it’s a work that she’s been thinking about making for a while - It’s absolutely beautiful and quite poetic. For this exhibition, she responded to Cardion Arts and the Museum of Transology’s invitation to participate in Talisman, by really pushing her practice to the next level — she’s made a work bigger than ever before. It’s really exciting to see our organizations inspiring artists to make new work and take their practice to new places. 

Virgin Variation 7 (2019), by Jesse Darling. Wood, plexiglass, paint, plastic, packing peanuts, letraset, baggage scales, steel chain, stickers. 136.7 x 27 x 55 cm. Photography by Damian Griffiths, courtesy the artist and Arcadia Missa, London.

Scott: We’ve got artists who really are at the forefront of the UK art scene — Jesse Darling who won the Turner Prize in 2023, created two amazing talismanic sculptural pieces that invite the viewer to navigate an imaginary, almost surreal reimaging of the human form from found pieces, some of which infer sacredness and ritual. Ajamu X has produced a new photographic work. He’s always been interested in the pleasure zone of Black queer bodies and his work’s eroticism intentionally radicalises the formality of the photography archive. Turner Prize winning Lubaina Himid’s hugely generous contribution to our show was made by her at a time when she is hugely busy with the weight of representing Great Britain at the Venice Bienale.. These incredible artists are right at the cutting edge of not only queer art, but British Art, Hanging emerging trans artists and hot new queer talent like Claye Bowler. Zach Toppin and Kasra Jalilipour alongside these with the elite of not only the Queer Art scene, but the entire British Art landscape elevates their work and enables them to locate the possibility of a bright future in dark times.

The Archivist (2025), by Ajamu X. Platinum Print on Tosa Washi Japanese Tissue paper. 10 x 8 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist.

We have Zach Toppin with two oil paintings, each featuring an armored glove inferring strength and resilience in combat, Archival sculptor Claye Bowler, has scoured Cornwall’s beaches in the pursuit of messages written in the sand, until he eventually found someone having had written the words “I love you”. He’s frozen the ephemerality of the form and the sentiment by casting the exact words in pewter before they were washed away by the tide. Niya B - definitely someone to watch - has contributed a piece called Meta:morphosis featuring Barbies that are hung from the ceiling, wrapped like cocoons, waiting to break out of their skin and discover new ways of being beautiful in their bodies. It’s popular culture meets ecosex meets gender potentiality: the installation really captures the specificity of this moment of intersectional awareness put into practice we’re seeing emerge across Europe.  

All of these artists’ works present really strong, timely trans themes about survival, emerging as yourself, and harnessing an inner power— reflecting a broader emergence of trans artists making a significant contribution to cultural conversations. . It’s exciting to see them showcased in this exhibition alongside major names, a nod to the future voices of the scene. This is precisely the opportunity Cardion Arts is offering here - a chance to leave a lasting legacy on both the art scene and the queer scene by empowering younger artists to stand confidently beside such established figures. That’s the real power of the show and in its own way, it’s what feels talismanic about it: we’re protecting each other by building this network of increasingly confident creative voices and in turn, this fosters an enduring, queer creative legacy.

Cieslik: What a wonderful shift into my next question. As someone who explores queer and trans embodiment through spirituality and queer divinity am really curious and excited by the works exploring this in Talisman. Why is it important to explore how spiritual networks can be affirming and protective of queer and trans people?

Rolls-Bentley: The queer community is probably one of the best examples of a community that comes together to support each other. I think that stems from the fact that acceptance within the family is not a given for queer and trans people. It is often quite the opposite, and so we’re forced to form our own family units, which is why you hear people talking about their chosen family so much. This ends up being an incredible blessing because we get to build families that reflect our own values. 

I think we’re very good at coming together, finding our people, sticking together, helping each other work through stuff, and that’s something that we’re really actively trying to push through Cardion Arts, and something that Museum of Transology has been doing for the past ten years. 

I was lucky enough to see MoT’s exhibition at Brighton Museum in 2015, where I saw intergenerational experiences reflected in the exhibitions. The work of MoT really speaks to the power of forging community across time, which is something that we need to do as a community. With this in mind, we’ve programmed a really exciting programme for early career artists on July 11th, which E-J can tell you about. 

Scott: The Cardion Artists’ Salon is a day-long event in which emerging queer + trans artists take part in creative workshops, engage in critical discussions and form peer connections with the more established artists on show. This event is about the spirituality of curatorial enactment in-and-of itself, how we enact curatorial care, what it means to engage with exhibition making as a craft that is driven by our community’s values and how we make bringing artists together for a group show a curatorial endeavour that is not only about them, but that’s also for them. So we’re curating a day-long programme of making and career advice workshops that bring together  the show’s well-established artists with 30 self-identified early-career trans and queer artists.

How can we queer a career day for early-career artists? What wisdom can be handed on to them from the artists that have experience and profiles in this show? The format is varied - some of the workshops are hands-on, some will be spiritually driven and some of them are going to be career skill building. It’s all going to be a very interesting day from a critical perspective, because the event itself embodies queer and trans methodologies to engage with career development in the arts sector. The huge response to the event call-out reflects the thirst amongst emerging talent for queer experimentation that fosters personal artistic growth. It’s really going to be the pinnacle of the show when it comes to bringing us together to grow and engage with the values of the community in order to foster strength, hope and potential for future artists.  It’s going to be very special. 

Cieslik: Can you highlight one piece that explores trans spiritual expression and liberation in this exhibition?

Obsidian Mirror III.II (2022), by Prem Sahib. Obsidian, steel. 26 x 18 x 5.5 cm. Courtesy the artist and Phillida Reid, London.

Scott: Prem Sahib has contributed a work called Obsidian Mirror III.II The mirror is made out of rapidly-cooled, black, volcanic rock. It forms when the volcanic lava doesn't crystallize, and gains a reflective glass-like quality in the process. It was used by the Aztecs to communicate with the dead in order to predict the future. 

It’s an extraordinary object, because you look deep into its darkness but at the same time, it reflects back upon you, and through this process of engagement you see yourself differently— fracturered, distant, suspended in darkness… The intensity of the rock’s blackness, in combination with its unique reflective property, creates an extremely intimate experience with the ancient material’s form. I find Prem Sahib’s work conceptually rigorous at the best of times, but this piece exudes a spiritual energy through its heady mix of material preciousness and aesthetic intensity, resulting in the viewer engaging with their own self in a very deep and dark gaze.  

Rolls-Bentley: We have two paintings by Danielle Brathwaite Shirley in the exhibition; ‘Intent’ and ‘I feel powerless when I post online’, that explore our relationship to religion, the spiritual, the internet, community, ourselves and each other. There is real despair articulated in these works, but also something quite powerful about the way she communicates some fairly bleak ideas, ideas that we’re often quite uncomfortable speaking openly about - there is a power in naming it, in calling it out in order to move beyond.

Swallow Pin, Museum of Transology. Photo courtesy of @henritartist.

Cieslik: How is the exhibition space itself a sacred, safe space for people to feel the protection and love of these artists?

Scott: It’s a safe, protective and spiritual space because of the way our queer and trans artists have come together to hold up and support each other’s work. The artists are also donating 20% of any sales of works to the homeless youth charity AKT: a sign of collective care and an act of selfless generosity. The whole space is a step away from the corporate art world and a coming-together of intentions, values and freedom of expression. It’s by trans and queer artists, for emerging trans and queer artists. And at the end of the day, that means the entire LGBTIQA+ community stands to benefit from the show’s legacy. 

Talisman runs through August 10, 2025. 

Note: LGBTIQA+ is used throughout this piece “because intersex is not an identity like queer,” Scott said. “It's a trait, so it is prioritised to pay homage to this lack of autonomy." WM