- Venue
- Millenium Galleries
- Location
- Yorkshire
Nasrin Tabatabai's Passage and Katie Davies' 38th Parallel
Having decided to write a review for my home town contemporary art event, I found it difficult to narrow down into one piece, such was the strength of the work on show. A packed out cascade of mini-openings at each venue on the opening night had set the tone.
Of all the venues, it was the work in the Millenium Galleries, Sheffields flagship arts centre, now in its adolescence and with the opportunity to show some really challenging work. Something which, many would argue, it has been starved of since first opening.
A close friend noted, and I couldn't agree more, that the most striking thing initially about the main gallery was how open it felt. It allowed you to breathe between works and gave each the space that it required. Also, this allowed the opportunity to compartmentalise certain works, offering the privacy that they warranted.
It was two works in particular which seemed to employ the space and the curatorial framework with the most agency. The first was Nasrin Tabatabai's Passage, a video found enclosed in the 'square igloo', with which we are all familiar as intimate spaces for viewing works within a large gallery space, and of course higly effective at punctuating the large raw open space. Also as common is your entry half-way through loop. The film traces the development of a relationship, over the period of a year, between the artist and a free newspaper distributor in the foyer of a Dutch shopping mall. It quickly transpires that not only is the lady not a native of the country but indeed she may not even be a legal tenant in the country. The reality of the situation unravels and her multiple facades become very apparent within what initially seems to be a position which requires very little of somebody.
In the past, with a film like this and of its apparent length, I almost always would have dipped into the area, gleaned what I could from the narrative and moved on. However, I felt anchored by the overarching text forwarded by the shows curator, Jan Verwoert. Despite being relatively isolated from others in the gallery, I was incredibly aware of my voyeuristic performance: of being seen to engage with the work for its duration. And, of course, one is rewarded by the work through the ability to garner as much of the relationship as the artist allows you to get.
The second piece, also a video, was Katie Davies' 38th Parallel. Set on the wall next to the entrance/exit to the gallery and presented on a 62 (000) inch plasma screen it offers an interesting dynamic upon approach. Shot in the demilitarised zone on the border between North and South Korea, the work 'seeks to portray the particluar reality of this contested site'. As a secondary onlooker, you feel like you shouldn't be there. There seems an unnerving lack of hostility dramatised by the precision of the documentation by the artist. Its difficult not to feel arrested by this. Constant glances to the left are required to remind that the ability to exit is still there.
The abstract in the programme reads: 'It is a reality marked with and eerie sense of latency.' And indeed it is. What seems to bolster this is the sense of latency which currently exists within the fissures of society as a whole and which perhaps nudges a nerve that little bit more for the refreshing reason that it does this without even a breath towards America or Iraq.
I initially wondered whether the two works mentionned may have been more poignanatly received if they were switched around. The idea of having the document of an (illegal) immigrant lady distributing newspapers by the gallery entrance and the militant isolation of Davies' work seen in well…isolation seems as if it could warrant further thought. However, with this thought came the clear conviction that what makes the situation of standing ten feet away from the border guards, locked into eye contact that is intensified by the fact that you cannot see the his eyes and that you cannot feel any empathy, is that you are reminded that you are free to leave a any point. I would however suggest, be aware of where you are.
