Weighting (2026)

Five enlarged marginalia stars from a 1960 English edition of Waiting for Godot (Beckett), hand-cut from natural rubber second-hand yoga mats (Yogi Bare) using stainless steel Tweezerman scissors.

ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting, stars 1 and 2, 19 September 2026, <p>Installation shot of <em>Weighting</em> stars at Cubitt Invites, London, 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting, stars 3 and 4, 19 September 2026, <p><em>Weighting</em> installation shot at Cubitt Invites, London, September 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting, star 5 (boy), 2026, <p>Weighting installation shot at Cubitt Invites, London, September 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting, star 1, 2026, <p>Installation shot at Cubitt Invites, London, September 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting, star 2, 2026, <p>Installation shot at Cubitt Invites, London, September 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting, star 3, 2026, <p>Installation shot at Cubitt Invites, London, September 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting, star 4, 2026, <p>Installation shot at Cubitt Invites, London, September 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting, star 5 (boy), 2026, <p>Installation shot at Cubitt Invites, London, September 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting, star detail, 2026
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting with Eloise Hawser, Cubitt Invites, 2026, 2026, <p>Eloise Hawser's vinyl print of train undercarriage installed in studio with <em>Weighting</em> for Cubitt Invites, London 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting with Eloise Hawser, Cubitt Invites, 2026, 2026, <p>Eloise Hawser's vinyl print of train undercarriage installed in studio with <em>Weighting</em> for Cubitt Invites, London 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Weighting with Eloise Hawser, Cubitt Invites, 2026, 2026, <p>Eloise Hawser's vinyl print of train undercarriage installed in studio with <em>Weighting</em> for Cubitt Invites, London 2026</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Cubitt Invites 2026 invitation, 2026
ANNABEL FREARSON, Cubitt Invites 2026 contributing artists, 2026

The Beckett estate would not let me use the text from Waiting for Godot for a project, so, I have recreated the five characters from a series of stars penned by an enthusiastic reader in the margins of an 1960 edition from University of Reading library, where the Beckett archive is housed.

Made from natural rubber, the stars could be said to be (of) trees, a key feature of the Godot set.

Beyond the refusal of the Beckett Estate, lies the refusal of Beckett to allow women to perform Godot’s characters, his refusal of static meaning, and desire for the dissolution of language itself.

I am interested in the phenomenology of language and embodied reading, and take joy in connecting to this erstwhile anonymous reader/s by amplifying their affective responses to this text. 

The title of the work, Weighting, performs a phonetic rendition of the original while avoiding its copyrighted reproduction. It also points to our contemporary obsession with rankings as arbiters of cultural value and consumption, as industrialised amplification of singular appreciation.

I was delighted to show Weighting alongside new work by Eloise Hawser, who installed the undercarriage of a train in my small studio as part of Cubitt Invites 2026.