For an exhibition with the subheading ‘people and places in recent film and video’, there’s a definite mood more reminiscent of times past than present in the shorts by the five artists selected here – be it in the choice of grainy black-and-white film, a slow-paced, observational documentary style, a slideshow structure or the use of actual old footage and recordings.
Ben Rivers’ black-and-white film ‘This is My Land’ focuses on an isolated, ramshackle dwelling in the middle of a Scottish forest and its lone, bearded occupant. Nothing much happens but we experience the season’s change from summer to winter through lingering longshots and close-ups – birdsong and mismatched socks hanging out to dry or the crunch of snow underfoot in a Narnia-like landscape. Whether the focus is on a congregation of Pentecostal worshippers – seen wailing, weeping and rocking as they pray in Mark Boulos’ ‘The Word Was God’, or the title subject of Stephen Connolly‘s ‘Film for Tom’, heard poignantly describing his own lack of a sense of self, these films explore psychological and emotional as well as physical space and what is heard can be as arresting as what is seen, perhaps most evocative in Stephen Sutcliffe’s use of archive poetry readings.
There’s a mix of fact and fiction, optimism and melancholy, and in Dwight Clarke’s ‘Superjednostka Rock Space’, also a hint of menace, but what all the work provides is a welcome open space for contemplation by the viewer, something that’s often missing in a culture more attuned to quick-click, quick-fix visual overload.
