INTERFACE

REVIEW

Whitstable Biennale

Whitstable, Kent
19 June - 4 July

Reviewed by: Rose-Marie O'Brien »

Whitstable, a small port situated at the mouth of the Swale in Kent and famous since Roman times for its oysters, now the playground of London weekenders, recently celebrated its fifth biennale with an eclectic programme of events ranging from film screenings to a ghostly kayak, via tap dancing and a grey bench.

The welcoming point on the main beach was itself part of the event; The Pavilion, a sculptural intervention acting as the festival headquarters, and a work by Kieran Reed whose practice explores the gap between functioning and non-functioning objects. Gleaming dully under the lowering sky and reflecting the neighbouring beach huts to which it stood in stark contrast, this aluminium-clad wooden construction functioned as an information point, library and museum space. The bitter rain pattering in bursts against the metallic sides of the structure encouraged me to make my first port of call the Horsebridge Centre, which hosted the film programme ‘Ur – now the ruins of the contemporary’. Curated by Brian Dillon, the works of the various artists dealt with the different narratives of time, past and present, and suggested that although the present is the time in which we appear to live, the present is simply the crossroads through which flows all time and experience. Mie Olise’s video Into the Pyramid (2008) focused on the interiors of buildings from an abandoned Soviet mining facility, conjuring up the lives of the vanished community through shots of bare rooms, whilst Bernd Behr’s Weimar Villa (Unreconstructed) (2010) showed, in contrast, the building of a new gated community in China. On the first day of the festival Brian Dillon discussed the film programme with some of the artists, including Behr and Tom Dale, whose films faced the theme of ruination with shots of the demolition of buildings in east London.

Stepping out of the Horsebridge Centre I wandered down the High Street to the Bingo Hall, a huge building reminiscent of an American diner, to view 67 Made in Heaven, a performance work by Lucienne Cole. After an earlier visit to Whitstable, Cole put together elements of the local culture to construct a work that was both humorous and thoughtful, tinged with hints of awkwardness and embarrassment. This proved a very popular event, with an eager audience indulging in tea and a nearby bakery’s novelty pastries, or ‘happy cakes’, to the accompaniment of the local Scouts Brass Band. I was fascinated by Cole’s straight-faced tap dancing prowess, and impressed by the rotating arms imitation of a steam train finale; I made the connection to Whitstable’s other claim to fame – the old Crab and Winkle train line, the first passenger line opened in 1830.

I returned to Whitstable on the second day of the biennale to head straight for the Old Nelson Inn where a further series of films by Adam Chodzko, Echo and The Pickers, were being shown and a kayak, Ghost, was exhibited in a separate room. I had timed my visit to coincide with the removal of the kayak to the beach, from where it was launched in front of a gathering crowd under, at last, a sunny sky. There was an air of excitement and expectation as Chodzko paddled the kayak out to sea, crossing the estuary to Deadman’s Island off the Isle of Sheppey, which in the nineteenth century had been used as a burial site for convicts who died on the prison 2hulks moored in the Swale. The Ghost slowly made its way across the swelling sea through haze-filtered sunlight, diminishing into the distance and disappearing from view.

Making my way along the sea front to the Old Neptune in search of Annika Strom’s new work Bench for the Bored in Whitstable, I passed many exhibits which formed part of the biennale’s lively Satellite Programme, opportunities for emerging artists to display their work, with seventy-five self-organised projects put on over the two weeks. I was particularly taken with the random knitted bicycles: Operation Knit Bike and Whitstable Birds by Lisa Penny. I came across the bench grey painted and solitarily positioned on the shingle beach; I sat on the sea wall and looked at it, ironically fulfilling the artist’s intention by becoming an actor of the piece.

Venue detail:
Whitstable Biennale (The) »
Project Office, Eliot College, University of Kent, Ramsgate CT11 9LE

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