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Memento is a contemplation of the human condition: how we act and react to the inescapable forces that shape us. Memento has been developed out of research into the plight of illegal immigrants who often take great risks in the hope of living a more significant and meaningful life. It also shows his interest in the supernatural.
Examples include ‘snakes’ or ‘ghosts’ (slam term to Chinese illegal immigrants), those Chinese who remain hidden in society (the tragedy that beset the cockle pickers), the Faujis, from India as well as the “burnt ones” young Moroccans, some, attempting to cross the Straight of Gibraltar, perish along the way.
Memento is a walk-through installation and consists of ropes, cut silhouettes, sound and video. Memento transforms the entire gallery space into ‘a haunting environment’ that the audience is invited to physically engage with.
The network of patterns is also reminiscent of the human circulatory system, passageways and maps. The video shown within the structure depicts the artist negotiating the might of churning waves emphasizing human beings’ vulnerability as well as celebrating the strengths to confront and overcome difficulty. Memento is a continuation of Pien’s ongoing interest in the otherworldly, invisibility, disappearance, and journeys. It poignantly reflects on the displaced, forgotten and unseen yet remains poetically open-ended, embracing multiple interpretations.
For more information please visit: www.nae.org.uk
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Suki Chan’s practice combines light, moving image, electronics and sound within mixed-media installations to explore our physical and psychological experience of space.
In a London of fast-blinking lights and speeding commuters, cars and trains leave luminous comet-trails marking their passage through the night, and individuals reflect on freedom in the urban metropolis, or seek escape from the repetitive habits and conditions it enforces.
Chan’s work is inspired by ideas of freedom of expression. In an impressionistic and lyrical study of London’s diverse population, Sleep Walk, Sleep Talk contrasts the movements of people on their way to and from work with their individual efforts to enjoy free time, and to create their own personal and psychological space outside the architectural restrictions and behavioural patterns imposed by life in the city.
Here she weaves together a series of video portraits highlighting revealing responses to the mania of London life. Groups of skaters, unimpeded by traffic, move freely and intuitively, mapping the twilight city. Nigerian security guards gatekeeping a deserted high-rise office block compare the ‘freedom’ of London with the rhythms and aspirations of their former lives.
For more information please visit: www.nae.org.uk
Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and originally presented in collaboration with A Foundation and 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning. Funded, as part of ‘Free to Air’, by London Councils. Suki Chan is represented by Tintype.
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