4th -19th April 2009
Quartair
Contemporary Arts
Vasilis Chamam,
Nicole Mollett, Abbi Torrance, Paul Westcombe ,Duncan Ward
The swamp, in its
various metaphors, is the place where human projects run into difficulties. It
stands for all that is unproductive, hostile, troubling, stagnant, and obscure.
It is inhospitable, sunken and opaque. But ask any naturalist who has studied the
habitat and they will tell you that the swamp is in fact constantly changing,
rich in diversity, teeming with life. They will tell you that it is also
possible to love a swamp.
The swamp is where
actions become bogged down, where our best laid plans peter out and come to
nothing. It is where the intellect, too, becomes confused, muddied, hopelessly
mired. It represents what is unknowable or unattainable, what cannot be
grasped.
The unconscious
may be envisaged as a swamp, a vast picture store, source of all imagery. This,
of course, includes all of our darkest imaginings, all that convention and
self-censorship has buried or hidden. Monsters emerge from the swamp.
The swamp tends
towards formlessness, is resistant to shapes and structures. Hierarchies dissolve
in it. It is a place of undoing and devouring.
The landscape of
the swamp is not one to be strolled through; it is not a place for promenades.
It is a visceral landscape, it has to be touched, it doesn’t stand back to let
itself be admired, it invites being fallen into and appreciated with the whole
tumble-tail body. Only up close, on our bellies, can we unpick the secrets of
the swamp.
This project was exhibited at the Quartair gallery in Holland.
Quartair Contemporary Art
Intiatives
Bilderdijkstraat141
The Hague 2513 CN
The Netherlands
http://www.quartair.nl/
 Abbi Torrance |
|
 Vasilis Chamam |  Duncan Ward |
 Nicole Mollett |
