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EcoCentrix at the Bargehouse, London

11/25/2013

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Photos by Rita Leistner
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Wandered through a powerful exhibition at the Bargehouse at Oxo Tower Wharf on the Southbank earlier this month. EcoCentrix: Indigenous Arts, Sustainable Acts included the work of more than 40 artists from the Americas, Australia, the Pacific and South Africa. Installed over four floors of the incredible space – which felt a lot like a loft complex one might find in DUMBO, Brooklyn - the exhibit housed a truly breathtaking range of photographs, digital media, sounds, texts and crafted objects. Much of it was interactive, and included an array of live performances and workshops that I was disappointed to have missed (I stumbled upon EcoCentrix on its last day).

What has haunted me since was a devastating installation on the top floor: The REDress Project, created by Winnipeg-based Métis artist Jaime Black. Red dresses were suspended throughout the dark, cavernous space – the effect was chilling and rather terrifying – the room felt filled with ghosts. Black conceived the piece in honour of the more than six hundred Aboriginal women reported missing or murdered in Canada. As much as I was spooked and uncomfortable in the space, the tragedy of these women was overwhelming such that I also wanted to stay with them a bit. 


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Less disturbing but equally resonant exhibits included Irma Poma Canchumani’s astonishing gourds, upon which she carves the storyboards for the films she then goes on to produce.

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And these gorgeous kites from Guatemala - gigantic bamboo and paper creations made to be flown on the Days of the Dead, in which ancestors are allowed to revisit the world of the living.

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I also loved this room, which gives a good sense of how perfect the Bargehouse was as a setting for EcoCentrix; in it are photos and costumes of the Masi Maidens – Rosanna Raymond and Katrina Igglesden – whose performance I wish I had seen.

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