Sunday, January 22, 2012

Re-worked

Re-worked, at Jersey Arts Centre until 4 February, is an exhibition of original work made in less than 36 hours from materials that have been found, have already been used in another context or are naturally occurring in the countryside.  The artists are Carl Danby, Paul Talbot, Claire Rondel and Kirsten Miller working with Ruth Baier-Rolls.


Shadows of Light - Carl Danby

ghosting through was particularly taken with Carl Danby's light installation, casting shadows on the gallery wall,

Shadows of Light - Carl Danby

and the exquisite wedding dress by Kirsten Miller with Ruth Baier-Rolls ( I might even call it a 'ghost of a wedding dress', following on from my recent Great Expectations post!)

Wedding Dress - Kirsten Miller + Ruth Baier-Rolls

The transparent pockets are filled with shells, leaves, petals and other natural treasures.

Wedding Dress - Kirsten Miller + Ruth Baier-Rolls

All the pieces exhibited are imaginative, giving a twist and a new dimension to everyday materials.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Another Earth


I saw over 50 screened films last year (festivals, film societies etc) and one of my favourites was indie Another Earth.


A perfect duplicate of the Earth appears in the sky on the day that MIT student Rhoda (Brit Marling) crashes her car killing a family, save for music professor John Burroughs (William Mapother).


On her release from prison, Rhoda inveigles her way into the home of  the grieving Burroughs, as a competition is launched for a prize ticket on the first trip to Earth 2.



As Rhoda quietly tries to work out some kind of redemption, the second Earth hovers above as a ghostly doppleganger, suggesting the possibility of paths not taken, of shadow lives.


The imagery is beautiful and never overstated.  It's one of those films that leaves a resonance with you for days and longer...


Saturday, January 14, 2012

Archisle # 1

Archisle # 1, the first exhibition created by the Jersey Contemporary Photography Programme, hosted by the Société Jersiaise, features images responding to the theme of islandness by 21 International and Jersey photographers.

It is 'an experimental project.  Its method is to test the result of forming a lens based compound out of two main constituents: the concept of the photographic archive and contemporary expressions of 'island experiences'...

...Islands of fact and of fiction have surfaced in the submissions... islands of the earth and islands of the mind.'  

(from Archisle #1: An Introduction - by Gareth Syvret with contributions from Mark Le Ruez.)

There are some beautiful images in the exhibition.  From a ghosting through perspective, I am especially drawn to Cynthia O'Dell's Migrations: Legacies of the Irish Famine and a Family Record of Amnesia:

Cynthia O'Dell Migrations 

By transferring images from family archives and historical sources to transparencies and placing them in the landscape, by overlaying the past onto the present, her images are haunting and they evoke how personal history and the history of a place can intertwine and resonate in the present through memory and nostalgia, leaving echoes and traces. 

Her narrative is one of migration and dislocation:

'As a child, my family's narrative revolved around dislocation: lost homes, both owned and rented, and disrupted family dynamics, all layered over with a nostalgic longing for vague notions of Irish heritage.'

'By symbolically taking my ancestors back to their native country I attempt to complete the circle of their migration pattern...  I am trying to re-create my own family album in an impossible scenario and as a result I am inventing a new narrative.'

(Cynthia O'Dell, from Artist's Statement.)

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Great Expectations



"It is the ghost of a wedding cake...




...and I am the ghost of a bride...



Time stands still and yet everything turns to dust..."

Sunday, December 4, 2011

No Man's Land


Must-see in Jersey at the moment is Mishka Henner's exhibition No Man's Land at Jersey Arts Centre until 10 December, part of this year's excellent Jersey Amnesty International Human Rights Festival. 



At the exhibition preview someone said that this was their favourite photograph, because the woman looks like a ghost in the landscape. 

There is something other-worldly about many of the images - women, alone or in pairs, at roadsides in Spain and Italy, probably sex workers.  This is partly because they have been captured from Google Street View, which blurs features to preserve anonymity, unintentionally creating a poignancy. 

Mishka's framing of the shots emphasizes the disparity between the women (brightly and occasionally scantily dressed) and the sometimes barren, sometimes lush roadside locations.  The women's presence is at times bold, plying for trade seated on plastic chairs, at times discreet, like icons at roadside religious shrines.



I'm a bit of a Google Earth obsessive myself so I love the layering of this work, how it explores our digital world and its liminal places, and also the stories it unearths, what it says about exploitation, surveillance and voyeurism, anonymity and transience.

Missing of course are the men, the punters and pimps, ironically alluded to in the title...

Thursday, December 1, 2011

This Is How Ghosts Are Made

Looking forward to This Is How Ghosts Are Made - the new EP by The Glass Child, released 5 December.



http://theglasschild.bandcamp.com/album/deluxe-box-this-is-how-ghosts-are-made-bonus-ep-songs-of-an-insomiac-the-glass-child-diary

Love this nocturnal, ghostly Hypnic Jerk:





'Tell me are you see-through?

This ghost you’re turning into

I shut my eyes, and you’re no longer here...'

Monday, November 21, 2011

Jersey Girl


                                                               falling

                                                                        falling

                                                        it's harder than it looks

                                                            snapshot   kamikaze

                                                                        no net    free fall

                                                                    skinny dipping

                                                                dead drop

                                                                   plunge dive

                                                                         tumbling

                                                          night ride into blue

      

 
                                                      plucked bird

                                                                 curled light

                                                            mute

                                                                   wind hung

                                                             the naked toe glide

                                                     this is how love looks

                                                            a leap of grace

                                                beauty from the air

                                                       falling

                                                              falling