at seventeen gallery, London
David Blandy and Petra Szemán; John Powell-Jones; Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley
Curated by Rebecca Edwards
1st – 31st May 2025

Many Ghosts, Many Shells debuts new collaborative work by Petra Szemán and David Blandy, in parallel with other artists working in the realms of identity and selfhood, reality and simulation. Each artist uses radical gameplay practices to ask where the self ends and the character begins, and what gets left behind. Also featuring works by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and John Powell-Jones, Many Ghosts, Many Shells presents gaming experiences as devices for establishing surrogate modes of existence, a new world through new selves.

When identities are increasingly fragmented across digital landscapes, these artists question how we reconcile our dispersed selves within today’s techno-political milieu. By bridging gaps between player and world, character and creator, the works in the exhibition challenge the very nature of agency and identity in a hyper-connected age where Away From Keyboard is never quite separate from Meatspace. Alter egos are often used to describe a concealed or contrasting side of a person’s personality, but in the case of playable characters or in the case of this exhibition, these alter egos become imbued with a sense of possibility – figures existing in a state of perpetual becoming, never fully whole but never entirely detached. Breaching a biographical narrative, the works in the exhibition question nostalgia, self-construction, and the processes of negotiating trauma and lived experiences that often percolate unsaid.

Sharing imaginaries across different practices, cultures and generations allows for a co-creation of richer, more inclusive visions, grounded in diverse experiences, knowledge systems, and values. In their game Our Ghosts, Our Shells, part 1 Blandy and Szeman share layered references to games of their youth, nostalgic artefacts and anime inspirations in a pixelated landscape of memory. Lucid game structures, immersive storytelling, and nonlinear narratives allow the works to invite a navigation into speculative futures and alternate pathways of existence. For Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley this means confronting histories of violence and mutilation through the uncovering of familial ties and oral testimony, asking questions of accountability and acceptance; while John Powell-Jones’ Web Wide World animated choose-your-own-adventure game and related ephemera encourages encounters with strange beings as we seek to understand the new universe of Durt where the protagonist Atamur has awoken void of a protective skin layer. From interrogating power and erasure in digital archives, to uncovering shared imaginaries that transcend cultures and generations, the exhibition positions gameplay as a radical tool for rethinking action in embodied engagement.

Featured works:
Petra Szemán and David Blandy, Our Ghosts, Our Shells, part 1, 2025
John Powell-Jones, Web Wide World, 2021
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, I’m Not Doing This For The Likes, 2022