Prejudices, superstitious or not, are seemingly hard indeed to shake off.

VOLT reopens with a solo exhibition by London based artist Olivia Sterling. Clutching at Straws features new paintings inspired by Some Sussex Superstitions Lingering from 1868, a book documenting various cures and remedies from English folklore. The works in this exhibition explore the absurdity of these remedies and use this as an allegory for the ignorance and irrationality of nationalism, xenophobia and racism.

The exhibition’s title – defined as ‘resorting to desperate measures when all else has failed’ – questions the persistence of these ideologies even in the face of conflicting facts and shifting cultural values; While the paintings from which the exhibition gets its name depict gesturing hands passing superstitious beliefs down through the generations. In Clutching at Straws, Sterling aims to parallel people’s attempts both in the 1800s and today to make sense of the world and to feel safe in the face of the unknown.

Some Sussex Superstitions Lingering from 1868 presents the English as ‘civilised’ while simultaneously describing the uncivilised and nonsensical nature of their practices. By recreating such outlandish remedies in contemporary painting, Sterling questions how we can address social justice at a time when xenophobia and racism persist.