In Conversation: Rafał Zajko and Jonathan Baldock

Join us on 17 May at 5pm for a conversation between artists Rafał Zajko and Jonathan Baldock, as they explore the themes, materials, and processes behind Zajko’s solo exhibition The Spin Off at Focal Point Gallery.

Working with a wide range of processes and materials, from ceramics and prosthetics to frescos, Rafał Zajko’s predominantly sculptural practice explores themes including architecture, labour, religion, working-class heritage, the industrial past, and queer identities. His works interweave each of these elements to suggest reinterpretations of the past – and to imagine new future realities.

This discussion will offer insights into Zajko’s practice and will further explore the new commissioned works produced on the occasion of this exhibition, with an opportunity to see the show before the event.

About the artists:
Jonathan Baldock (b. 1980, Kent, UK) is a London-based artist who works across multiple platforms including sculpture, installation and performance. With work often taking on a biographical form, he addresses the trauma, stress, sensuality, mortality and spirituality around our relationship to the body and the space it inhabits. His solo exhibition WYRD is opening at Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, in May 2025. Other recent solo exhibitions include 0.1%, London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE, UK (2025); Touch Wood, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK (2023); through the joy of the senses, Charleston Lewes, Sussex, UK (2023); Unearthed, Kunstverein Göttingen, Germany (2023); we are flowers of one garden, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK (2023); I’m Still Learning, La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain (2021); Warm Inside, Accelerator, Stockholm, Sweden (2021); and Me, Myself and I, Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway (2020). Recent group exhibitions include Poor Things, Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, UK (2023); Strange Clay at Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2022); Threadbare at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK (2021); Human Conditions of Clay at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales (2021); and the inaugural Towner International biennial at Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK (2020).

Rafał Zajko (b. 1988, Białystok, Poland) is an artist based in London. Zajko was recently awarded Abbey Fellowship at British School at Rome (Spring 2024). His sculptural commission Bread and Milk was shown in Autumn 2023 at Kunshalle Wien in Austria. Recent solo exhibitions include Clocking Off, Queercircle, London (2023), Song to the Siren, Cooke Latham Gallery, London (2022), Amber Waves, Public Gallery, London (2021), Resuscitation, Castor Projects, London, UK (2020); We Were Here/My Tu Bylismy, Galeria Im. Slendzinskich, Białystok, Poland (2019); Unputdownable, White Cubicle, London (2018). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including London Open 2022 at Whitechapel Gallery, New Contemporaries 2021 at South London Gallery, X Museum, Beijing, China (2020); TJ Boulting, London, UK (2020); Bold Tendencies, London, UK (2020).