Upstair in the Arnolfini Gallery is the first major solo exhibition of the artist Shilpa Gupta. Gupta creates
artwork using interactive video, websites, objects, photographs, sound and
public performances to probe and examine subversively such themes as desire,
religion, notions of security on the street and on the imagined
border. When you first enter into the show, you are presented a wall of shelves holding book covers made of metal. The piece is based around 100 books that have been written by either anonymously or under a pseudonym. The books are a mixture from around the world, different centuries and other cultures.the authors of the books hide there real names for many different reason, ranging from fear of imprisonment to simply thinking a different name would seel the book better. The work looks in to social, political dialogue of discrimination and understanding
individuality.
The second room contains a piece called Singing Cloud. A large cloud shape made out of 4000 microphones. The microphones have been changed so instead of recording sounds, they emit a soundtrack made out of fragments of speech, that ripple and 'sing' across the works surface. Also in the room is a flap-board, used traditionally to announce arrivals and departures. The board displays short sentences that change every few seconds. The flap-board symbolises the numbers of the people migrating and those lost in this movement.
Within the third room is two other pieces of work, one a series of photographs and the other a wall with tape stuck directly to it creating a flag with text. The photographs show her in military style clothing doing many different poses, creating gun shapes or covering her eyes and mouth with her hands. These images reflect the violence in the world and the repression of knowledge. The tape flag created out of yellow tape symbolises nationhood, however along the tape is printed "there are no borders here". The piece brings forward the ideas of both physical and psychological division between people simply because of where they live.
The text on the flag says:
I TRIED VERY HARD TO CUT THE SKY IN HALF, ONE FOR MY LOVER AND ONE FOR ME. BUT
THE SKY KEPT MOVING AND CLOUDS FROM HIS TERRITORY CAME INTO MINE. I TRIED
PUSHING IT AWAY, WITH MY BOTH HANDS, HARDER AND HARDER BUT THE SKY KEPT MOVING
AND CLOUDS FROM MY TERRITORY WENT INTO HIS. I BROUGHT A SOFA AND PLACED IN THE
MIDDLE, BUT THE CLOUDS KEPT FLOATING OVER IT. I BUILT A WALL IN THE MIDDLE, BUT
THE SKY STARTED TO FLOW THROUGH IT. I DUG A TRENCH, AND THEN IT RAINED AND THE
SKY MADE CLOUDS OVER THE TRENCH
I went to the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol to see the work of Sophy Rickett. The piece I saw was 'To The River' a new video/sound installation, filmed during the spring equinox on the banks of the River Severn. The film focuses on a group of people a waiting for the Severn Bore to pass. The Severn Bore is a tidal surge that sweeps up the estuary of the River Severn during a certain time of the year, it is one of the largest in the world and many people come to see it. The piece investigates the relationship between humans and the natural world.
Sophy writes: ‘The project will explore issues that have resonance locally, and also globally. I am interested in ideas around politics and the environment, and also in the very demanding and teleological relationship humans have with the natural world. I am also interested in the Bore as a subject in itself, and equally in its ‘agency’ in broader philosophical and cultural terms.’
The film is projected on three different screens in the corners of a large dark room, each screen is edited to play different parts of the film at the same time. A recording is played in the room, a mixture of crowd talking and waiting for the wave to pass and the low rumbling of the River Severn in the background. The sound echos around the room, surrounding the viewer. You hear the crowd joke and banter, while trying to entertain themselves in the cold while they wait. For a long time the crowd suddenly fall silent while small waves pass, this silence seem endless in the dark and you feel the same anticipation as the crowd, until a women breaks the silence and the crowd being talking again.
