FILM & PRINTS SONGS FOR HOME AND ECONOMY
CCA, Glasgow, Sat 17 Apr-Sun 30 May
Don’t expect much to happen in a Rosalind Nashashibi film. Watching her works of a bar and street in Nebraska or a Salvation Army jumble sale in Glasgow, time passes, people come and go, they pull up a bar stool, hand over some change, the pattern of life moves with an ebb and flow as people move in and out.
It is a fusion of observation and abstraction that makes her film work unique. You are looking on at a specific scene and location while all the while there is a distance. We are one step removed so that you can see a man taking a drink at a bar or eating some food in a café but you can also see the general dynamic of life in these spaces. And it takes time to get into their rhythms and pace. They demand patience; demand that you slow down and invite meditation.
‘l’m interested in making a personal statement through taking a distanced look at things,’ says Nashashibi. ‘So it’s not about somebody’s story and it’s not my story, it’s really being able to look and create enough space for the viewer to be able to look and really question things about how we negotiate institutions, but also I’m interested in abstract things like composition.’
In Nashashibi’s latest works commissioned by the CCA, a Palestinian family living in Nazareth and the Glasgow University Library are her subjects. Hreash House holds all generations of a family - the extended relatives, young and old. She was introduced to the family by her aunt who lives in Jerusalem.
‘It was just a social trip but there was this amazing situation there of all these people and this very different
INSTALLATION MARTIN WESTWOOD:
ANGELUS NOVUS
Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 24 Apr 0000
The lack of decoration in the window front gives little clue to the Collective's latest show. but inside Martin Westwood has transformed the space with his installation. Ange/us Novus.
The Alice in Wonderland-height dOOrways bring attention to the low ceilings in this constructed children's nursery. which transports adults into a childhood world. The exhibit moves through three colour coded rooms. beginning with a calm green area which is almost empty. apart from a mural on the wall and a pile of invoice papers impaled on a Spike. From this. the viewer can look through a window into the next space. a deserted classroom in the
Still from Hreash House
feeling of ownership,’ she says. ‘I also saw it as a way of life that’s dying out and I wanted to record that. It’s very important for me to show Palestinian families just living because it’s so alien to people living here. Somebody who saw the footage described it as middle-class, but what they meant was that they had a roof and that they were eating breakfast round a table rather than a demolished house)
She describes it as a beehive and it’s a nice image to conjure up the life that hums within the space; it calls to mind the title of the classic film by Spanish director Victor Erice, Spirit of the Beehive.
The university library is a space whose hushed sounds have formed the soundtrack to a piece which she says has become more abstract than Hreash House. Collage and screenprints will also form part of the show.
So slow down, look, really look, see how the life of a family house, an academic institution, lives and breathes with the dynamics of the humans within it. Watch and listen to the rhythms - feel, essentially, the heartbeat of the spaces into which Rosalind has tuned her personal stethoscope. (Ruth Hedges)
Installation view of Angelus Novus
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ART BEAT
News from the world of art
Escape to Cove Park
APPLICATIONS ARE SOUGHT for Cove Park’s unique residency to develop new work. Situated on the west coast of Scotland overlooking Loch Long, the charity awards artists from any discipline with accommodation, studio space, a fee of £3,000 and a materials budget. To apply for the three-month residency commencing on 21 June 2004, submit a current CV with two professional references, documentation of work and a statement outlining the reasons for applying, past experience and the relevance of your work. Deadline for applications is Monday 3 May. For more information call 01436 850123 or email information@covepark.org. ENGAGE SCOTLAND. AN organisation which provides gallery education support and professional development. is to manage the Scottish visual arts education awards previously run by the Scottish Arts COuncil. There are ten awards of 21.000 up for grabs and galleries. museums. arts organisations and artist-led collaborative projects are invited to submit education projects completed between 1 April 2003 and 31 March 2004. The awards will be announced on Friday 25 June at M0unt Stuart on the Isle of Bute. For more information call Rebecca Marr on 01592 5631 10 or email scotland@engage.org. MOST OF US POSSESS A holiday souvenir, whether of the tacky variety or the tasteful. The forthcoming summer exhibition at the Lighthouse in Glasgow, Wish You Were Here (12 June—8 August), examines the history of mementos looking at the diversity in design across cultures. If you have a souvenir or are going on holiday between now and the end of May, your tourist tat could be included in
midst of constructing papier mache balloons.
It has many familiar trappings of a school room. such as a hessian covered notice board dotted with staples and caught scraps of paper. and pools of pva glue tinged with colour from the paper. But other details are more disconcerting — the pictures are of business men and
women. not mummy or daddy. and there are more invoice sheets strewn across the floor. all printed with a leaf shaped logo which is replicated on the children‘s paper. Even the papier mache IS regulated. made from straight. shredded strips. and the colours in the room are controlled and bureaucratic.
The final room is a complete dead end: cold. stark and littered wrth black out out
leaves. The wall murals are muted grey and show strange creatures Such as dragons. dolphins. toning dwarves and an apocalyptic figure influenced by Paul Klee's original Ange/us Novus. Westwood's ghastly ‘angel' fears a storm Created by the forces of capitalism and economies. which threaten to strangle the creatrvrty and playfulness of children. (Rachael Streeti
the exhibition. Send a picture of it by email to Iucy@thelighthouse.co.uk or by post to Lucy McEachan, exhibitions manager, The Lighthouse, 56 Mitchell Street, Glasgow, G1 3LX. For more information call 0141 225 8427.
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