Marcia Farquhar, Jem Finer

Marcia Farquhar is a London-based interdisciplinary artist working across performance, photography, video, sculpture and object-making. Her practice explores storytelling, chance, participation and the unpredictable nature of live events. Often created for specific sites, her performances have been presented in museums, galleries, lecture theatres, hotels, parks, pubs and other unconventional spaces around the world. Drawing on everyday situations and popular culture, Farquhar’s work balances carefully conceived structures with improvisation and embraces the unique, unrepeatable character of each live encounter.

Cyclical Serendipity

Cyclical Serendipity – a title honouring the 1968 ICA exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity, whose poster was designed by Franciszka Themerson – is a four-hour durational performance by Marcia Farquhar, unfolding as day gradually turns into night.

Based on improvisation, pataphysics and indeterminacy, the performance moves through cyclical seasonal stories – “ghosts for all seasons” – exploring the symbolic relationships between the equinoxes, solstices and the passing of time.

Inspired by Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, the work transforms personal memories into a shared experience, where fragments of one life become stories about people, places, dreams and humour.

Marcia Farquhar is joined by her husband, Jem Finer, who creates a live soundscape using the accidental and unpredictable sounds of the surrounding space. Together, the artists invite the audience to experience the wonder of existing in space and time, embracing its beauty, contradictions and unpredictability.