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NATURAL DISASTERS(URBAN MYTHS, URBAN LEGENDS)
By: Grace Ndiritu
A video performance dealing with environmental issues through using animation and found footage. Watch it on www.axisweb.org/artist/gracendiritu and order now at gracendiritushop@hotmail.com £25.99 inc PP UK
Grace Ndiritu
Grace Ndiritu was born in 1976 in Birmingham and lives and works in London. She studied at Winchester School of Art, London; De Ateliers, Amsterdam; and had a UK studio residency at Delfina Studios, London (2004-2006).
Her 'Hand-crafted videos' and 'Video Paintings' have been widely exhibited. Recent solo shows include the Chisenhale Gallery, London (2007), the 51st Venice Biennale (2005) and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2005) Recent group shows include those at the Studio Museum Harlem, New York (2008), Dakar Biennale, Senegal (2008) and Metropolitan Museum of Art and Grey Art Gallery, New York (2008).
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Grace Ndiritu, 'NATURAL DISASTERS(URBAN MYTHS, URBAN LEGENDS)', video, 2007. Photo: Grace Ndiritu. Courtesy: Grace Ndiritu. A video performance dealing with environmental issues through using animation and found footage.
# 1 [15 April 2009]
NATURAL DISASTERS(URBAN MYTHS, URBAN LEGENDS)
Watch it on www.axisweb.org/artist/gracendiritu and order now at gracendiritushop@hotmail.com £25.99 inc PP UK
Natural Disasters (Urban Myths, Urban Legends) continues the linage of making environmental film/videos started by the films Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi in the 1970's. These films by Gogfrey Reggio were inspired the Hopi words given to the titles to mean Life out of Balance and Life in Transformation. The Native American relationship to nature is one of omnipresence and does not distinguish in terms of status and power between human beings and the natural world. In contrast the Westernized ideology of conquest and exploitation has produced a 'model' of nature, a simulated media reality showing one 'natural' disaster after another without a larger (spiritual) context in which to place them in today's rapidly changing world. Natural Disasters (Urban Myths, Urban Legends) uses found footage, animation and performance to reflect on how this contemporary phenomenon occurs.