PS² is delighted to present Soda Jerks, a collaborative exhibition by E Boyfield, Phillip McCrilly, and Natalia Ruhe—opening Thursday 7 August as part of Late Night Art and running until 30 August.
Emerging from the artists’ shared research during the Gramounce’s inaugural alternative MA in Food & Art Studies, Soda Jerks reimagines the mid-century soda jerk—a mid-century service worker known for flair and repetition—as a framework for thinking about food, labour, and the performance of tradition.
Water—its movement, mythology, and cultural significance—serves as the connective tissue between the artists’ diverse practices. From sacred wells and soda fountains to beer-stained pub carpets and illicit alcohol routes, liquid flows through the exhibition as both subject and metaphor, tracing pathways of desire, displacement, and cultural exchange. Alongside its symbolic charge, water appears as remedy—mineral-rich, medicinal, and often miraculous—anchored in centuries-old beliefs around healing springs and the laying on of hands.
The exhibition unfolds across multiple sites and formats: textile-based installations, a billboard commission at PeasPark, and a one-night-only tasting event. Together, these elements consider hospitality and service not simply as acts of provision, but as charged rituals of cultural transmission—simultaneously generous and guarded, intimate and institutional…
- PS² Project Space, Property House, 11 Rosemary Street, Belfast BT1 1QA
- 7 (opening Late Night Art) to 30 Aug
Read more about this exhibition at the PS² website below.