Souvenir is an exhibition, book Launch, and a series of weekly performances staged one year after their residency: “The Shop” at 450 New Cross Road. Sartre25 reimagines and repurposes the notion of the “shop that sold nothing” into a new configuration that raises questions around the value of art objects and other forms of commodification in relation to systems of belief that are often unravelled through the development of stagecraft, exhibition and performance.

Taking its name sake from a GAYDAR profile (1-24 were already taken) Sartre25 aka Bernard Walsh and William Joys is an independent platform that has over recent years staged a series of public events, which incorporate various forms of visual display through exhibition, online representation, theatrical performance and publication. Their aim is to promote a spirit of independence in a world which seems increasingly bound by systematic procedure and prescriptive formulation.

Public Program

14th July
Bernard Walsh: The Promise
William Joys: The Actress part 1 Introduction to the Method

21st July
Bernard Walsh: The Label
William Joys: The Actress part 2 Letters and Libel

28th July
Bernard Walsh: Harpurhey
William Joys: The Actress part 3 The Military Mind

Bernard Walsh is a contemporary metaphysical poet, a visual artist, and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art at Goldsmiths. He writes and speaks from a position of ignorance, as if he knows nothing, in order to raise questions that might unsettle specific notions of truth. He is interested in museums, in giftshops, and in modes of display where images have been transformed into objects, and objects transformed into images.

Selected performances, exhibitions, and publications:
Bernard Walsh’s Tipping Point Battenburg: Art of Performance at UEL, London (2023); Is this a dagger? Deptford Town Hall, London, UK (2023) and HH Artspace, Goa, India (2023); Jack in the Jungle, published by Ditto Press, London, UK (2014); Bring Me Sunshine, published by Ditto Press, London, UK (2015); An Utter Disgrace, published by Sartre25, printed by Calverts, London UK (2022) Souvenir, Bernard Walsh and William Joys, published by Sartre25, designed by JMMP, Germany (2023).

William Joys performs through layers of subterfuge, channelling characters in order to invoke a suspension of disbelief. Through his own performance he becomes an object, which embodies the prop, the stage, the costume, in order to promote the art of actressing.

Selected performances:
William Joys One Man Show, Kunsthalle Muenster, DE (2019) and Kunstraum London, UK (2019) Jack on the Track Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, DE (2019); Masterclass Glasgow International, CCA Glasgow, UK (2021); Wilful Pleasure The Legal Stage, Lambeth County Court, London, UK (2023) and Battenburg performance festival, UEL, UK (2023).