Why be a slug? Abi Palmer’s debut solo exhibition creates an alternate universe where, rather than treated with disgust, slugs are worshipped. Through slime, queerness, politics of space and deeply erotic, alien mating rituals, Slime Mother invites audiences to merge and connect with this complex gastropod, and embrace its resilient strangeness. Expect to leave feeling a little more slug-like….

The exhibition will be accompanied by Slugs: a Manifesto, a new publication by Palmer, published by Makina Books.

“I identify with the slug: I too have been regarded with repulsion, no more than a pest stealing spoils from the hardworking farmer. Once I allow myself space to move beyond visceral disgust and phobia, I find space for beauty, fascination and even a glistening reverence for a creature who became more disgusting as a means of survival” – Abi Palmer

About Abi Palmer

Abi Palmer is an artist and writer. She uses film, text, sculpture and sensory intervention to explore sick bodies, viscous textures and ecological landscapes.

Works include film series Abi Palmer Invents the Weather (Artangel, 2023); book Sanatorium (Penned in the Margins, 2020); and interactive gambling arcade Crip Casino (exhibited at Tate Modern, Somerset House, Wellcome Collection and Collective Edinburgh.

Her copulating slug sculptures were selected for the Frieze Corridor Commision (2023) as part of the Outset Studiomakers Prize. She is a Bloomberg New Contemporaries artist (2023); a recipient of Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s ‘Awards for Artists (2021) and Artangel’s ‘Thinking Time’ award (2020). Sanatorium was shortlisted for the Barbellion Prize.