This week I was invited along to an opening of new works in a show titled Dislocation at Rivington Place.
The show contained new works by a group of students in collaboration with artist Erika Tan and iniva. The show includes a reel of video works, sculpture, photography and works on paper.
During the evening I was introduced to Tessa Jackson, CEO of iniva. She spoke about the prevalence of the discussion house’s position in London and specifically the East End. How this position related to its role of bringing to light issues or subjects that are often neglected from our cultural media landscape, bringing ‘the other’ inside, whether that’s by providing non-British artists with a space or bringing the together the discourse of artists to a platform that allows it to be discussed in a much wider context.
It was great to hear her interest in how the student’s may have responded to invia’s Keywords exhibition that was taking place in the rest of the building. It includes works from the late 70s and early 80s and is based around the seminal work of Raymond Williams who explored our culture’s application of language and the shifts that occur in our use of words.
Prior to this putting together Dislocation the group explored ‘the technologies of museums, curatorial framings and the ubiquitous green screen’, in terms of how these modes of practice affect our understanding of ‘dislocation’ and how Keywords offers one perspective for that understanding.
A photography series by Zac Underwood depicts the artist fulfilling the roles of extras within famous stills from Hollywood blockbusters. Shifting our attention from Tom Cruise’s abs in Top Gun, to the volleyball player in the distance.
An interesting work by Lou Macnamara, in the form of a printed newspaper titled The Dislocation, explores how education, both historically and culturally, creates a relationship to our past and through found texts and images attempts to question that condition.
However, it was the video work in this exhibition that undoubtedly dominates the modest space. Much of the work spoke to the contemporary condition in which we find the use of the Internet as a tool for accessing information and discovery.
How Agni Got His Strength Back, a piece by Keshav Anand deploys found footage and text, that originally found in Sanskrit has undergone several levels of human and mechanical translation including Google Translate, to form a narrative. The product of this process that openly enables the possibility for misinterpretation is very effective.
Tosin Ogunsanya uses dream as the subject for a disorientating film that questions notions of self and other. It establishes a framework which assesses the meaning and viewpoint of our experience of said dream.
The experience of narrative and identity is a clear theme amongst most of the works screened. South African tales re-imagined in London make the content of Jade Wilford’s work while prejudices of assigned identity found in Mexican culture are questioned as Sofia Bracamontes transforms herself into an image of ‘el Indio Juan Diego’. Google it.
The exhibition features work by Philip Alcock, Keshav Anand, Sofia Bracamontes, Nicole Coson, Sarah Hamilton, Roshanak Khakban, Louisa Macnamara, Faun Nash, Tosin Ogunsanya, Molly Daisy Pearce, Delphine Simeao, Zac Underwood and Jade Wilford.
It runs from 18 – 27 April, more information can be found here.
NB. Captions to follow