A life of its own
You tell me
Jananne Al-Ani, Echo, The Visit (2004)
Jananne Al-Ani, Echo, The Visit (2004)
Jananne Al-Ani, Echo, The Visit (2004)
Jananne Al-Ani, Echo, The Visit (2004)
Jananne Al-Ani, Echo, The Visit (2004) The Visit (2004). A work in two parts: Production stills from Muse (2004) 16mm film, transferred to DVD, 15 min. single channel projection. 190 x 300 cm. Photographs: Effie Paleologou. Stills from Echo (1994-2004) VHS transferred to DVD, 10 min. four channel projection. 30 x 30 cm each. Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and Norwich Gallery. Courtesy of the artist
Jananne Al-Ani, Untitled (2002). Production still from Untitled (2002), DVCam transferred to DVD, 3 min. single channel projection. Dimensions variable. Commissioned by Terra Incognita. Courtesy the artist
Tracey Moffat, Laudanum (1998). Tone gravure prints on 250 grammes Arches Cover White 100% acid free rag paper. Series of 19 Images. 30 x 22.5 inches (76 x 57 cm). Edition of 60. (TM 01 16/60). Courtesy of the Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Copyright: The Artist
Richard Wentworth, Spread (1997). Ceramic. 6m diameter. Courtesy of the Artist and Lisson Gallery, London
Adriana Varejao, The Guest (2004). Oil on canvas. 70 x 50 cm. (ADV 1330). Courtesy of the Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Copyright: The Artist
Richard Wentworth, The Red Words (Die Roten Worte) (1997). Aluminium foil, copper, wood and plastics. 41.5 x 53 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and Lisson Gallery, London
The essay that follows is topography of places which emerge through my engagement with the work of four artists – Jananne Al-Ani, Tracey Moffatt, Adriana Varejao, and Richard Wentworth – exhibited for (hi)story, Kunsthalle, Thun (2005). The works invite me in; they draw me close to tell me stories of places. Some I enter through my imagination, others by remembering, travelling back to my childhood in the middle-east. These are journeys to places both external and internal, they take me outside myself and offer me new geographies, new possibilities, but they also return me, altered, to myself, to my own biography, my own interior. This is a back and forth movements, a travelogue written between inside and outside.
Publication Details: ‘You tell Me’, Public Spheres After Socialism Malcolm Miles, Angela Harutyunyan and Kathrin Horschelmann (eds) (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2008).
