positions
Looped video installation, 2004
The work began after I found myself swimming alongside a group of people with disabilities, many of them war survivors. I was struck by the beauty and freedom of their movements underwater, in contrast to the circumstances that had left them disabled.
I filmed the swimmers, rotated the images upright, slowed the footage and reduced the movement to a single stroke. Projected high above eye level, the image gives the viewer the sensation of being underwater. Only gradually does one recognise the physical disabilities of the swimmers.
I was interested in that shift in perception, in how we look at others and the limitations we carry ourselves.
Just before the Positions exhibition, I realised that the participants in the video would be unable to enter the gallery. In response, I created The Loop, a wheelchair ramp conceived as an installation. The ramp remained in place and later became part of the performance For the Status (2008).
The Standard — Preachiness overpowers poetry
Exhibitions
2007 – Paranoia, Freud Museum, London
2007 – Paranoia, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds
2005 – Conspiracy, group show, São Paulo, Brazil
2004 – Positions, video installation, solo show, Dom Omladine, Belgrade