Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder
It was a cold and miserable day. Everything had taken on this grey look, the rain had sucked all the colour out of the immediate vicinity.
From the main entrance, I turned right 3 times and entered through the car park into the lower half of 180 Strand, a vast building that’s very easy to lose sense of where you are once you’re inside. I was here to look at the exhibition Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder, a curation of 12 very different artists across mediums who invited audiences to access worlds that aren’t our own.
‘A Rebirth of Wonder’ is borrowed from Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem I Am Waiting, a metaphor for hope within endless anticipation for change. Written after the second World War, the poem is romantic in its longing and modern in its self-awareness. Ferlinghetti asks for removal of destructive forces of culture to no avail, which is at the heart of today’s social crisis. His Rebirth of Wonder is the moment when the waiting ends and a psychic renaissance of wonder transforms society, tipping us into a new era.
Here are a few of the artists that stood out for me.
Donna Huanca
In the middle of a white and bright room stands a double sided painting on a semi circle of white sand. My initial impression was of awe due to the size of her work, which is quite textured and tactil with a palette of blues and greens. The soundscape that accompanied the work allowed me to have a moment of reflection and meditation; to leave my preconceptions at the door. Huanca’s work seeks a world of freedom and compassion, one we could create if only we could get beyond the grip of patriarchal norms and oppressive legacies.
Dough Aitken
Stepping into a darkened polygon shaped room, with the sides created by alternating video projections and mirrors, this was perhaps a room that I felt the most immersed in. Aitken’s video of colour and sound presented an open-ended narrative that reinterpreted architectural spaces, resisting the singular idea of what an artwork is or can be. His work, New Era, is the examination of the invention of mobile phone technology and its impact on our understanding of reality. Due to the seductive nature of mobile technology, screen space and connectivity has become equal to the physical space around us. His all-encompassing scale illustrates how the device has replaced our world view and that we are no longer just watching the screen; we have fallen into it.
Harley Weir & George Rouy
Through another doorway I entered what appeared to be a bank vault, internally covered with red crushed velvet. Large black framed portraits lined the 3 sides that I could see from the doorway. Each image is like an action painting, as impressions of unidentifiable body parts are left on the canvas. They almost look like that, at any moment, they could burst from their thick black frame confinements and unleash a greater sense of intimacy. Created using photographic paper, a disco ball, iphone light and bodies, this collaboration appealed to me the most, with its negotiation of light and dark, analogue and digital creation. They speak of an eternal cycle of energy and transcendence of experience beyond flesh, time and space by realms of creation and connectivity.
Juliana Huxtable
‘Writing is a therapeutic impulse’ quoted by Huxtable, who’s creative process often begins with words and writing. Known for her diaristic observations and assertions, the work itself moves beyond the self and individual experience to highlight a critical engagement with interdependence, care and community. Her untitled work is printed from floor to ceiling in various type sizes and formats, using humour, home truths and deep investigative research to combat racist and transphobic narratives in culture. Ideology, language and symbolism have been twisted until devoid and neutralised of its power to harm. I’m not sure if I quite like Huxtable’s work but it definitely stood out in a semi-obnoxious in your face type of way.
I really liked this exhibition with each artist being a powerful mediator of their community and culture, using storytelling to construct new narratives and widen the viewers field of vision. Being invited into this series of highly authored and staged environments really allowed me to reflect on my perception of, and presence in, these worlds within worlds.
