This Is Not Our City
April 9th to April 15th 2008
‘This Is Not Our City’ is a group exhibition by Julie Kilminster, Jessica Little, Anna Newbon, Catherine Head, Nicola Ann Naylor, Matthew Everatt, Francis O Donnell Smith, Hayley Vann, Alex Thomson, Jane McFadden and Kerry Ann Taylor. Their work stems from photographic, video and painterly backgrounds, sitting well together as an interesting, diverse group exhibition.
Our living and working environment is an intricately layered network of countless voices and diverse relationships, subject to repetitive systems and constant change. What is sustained by an industry of ever-developing technologies, the functions of our social traditions and boundaries continue to alter, whilst interpersonal activity becomes increasingly dependant upon digital and mechanical methods. In favour of the instant and the convenient, a digitally sent letter may be misinterpreted for lack of human speech, tone and correct language, whilst the delivery of a message may fail due to technical fault. Our contemporary modes of communication appear to maintain an increasing degree of isolation from physical human contact. Evident in the majority of larger British cities in recent times, such is the condition of our living spaces; where the ideology that societal integration and architectural regeneration brings about beneficial reform is widespread. State approved identity renewal reshapes the future of urban aesthetic in 21st Century Britain. In the name of affordable city living, apartment blocks rise and superstores emerge in their hundreds, whilst innumerable public houses that serve a particular demographic replace the familiar general outlets, forcing limited choice for city leisure and continuing the motion of increased digital shopping. Both the purpose and presence of modern steel and glass edifices have restructured the movement and mentality of our society, where in the process of change a particular strand of history and culture is misplaced.
‘This is not our City’ features multidisciplinary work from eleven artists who practice in a variety of media, collectively in film, multi-projection and still photography to textiles, installation and painting. Recurrent references to location lie within the work in which the artists observe and question their local and international surroundings. Geographical coverage ranges from the sleepless neighbourhoods of New York City, to the concrete mediocrity of modern British towns, from the darkened balcony views of metropolitan Barcelona to the trails of ancient Venetian passageways. Sequentially, this collection examines social impacts of conflict and segregation, division of land, passenger traces in tourism, transient environments, hidden and masked personas, fading memory and documentation of passive occurrences.
Any location or context of this exhibit may not be a familiar place for artist and viewer alike. Equally, the transforming UK suburbs and skylines cause displacement upon foreign visitors of differing language and residents forced to navigate their way between unpredictable building sites and shifting city routes. This body of work is displayed with a view to raise relevant questions and constructive conversations based upon the subtexts of inheritance, adaptation and belonging. Are we becoming strangers in an unfamiliar land, or do we easily conform to the alterations? What is our citizen role in such an environment and how do we use and react to these places? This may not be our city; nevertheless, through birth we are inhabitants of the land who share a common space and existence.