Sophie Ernst: HOME

About

Ernst interviews people forced to leave their homes due to political upheaval, such as during the Partition of South Asia in 1947, and builds an architectural model of the houses they describe. She then projects onto this sculpture video footage of the person's hands as they describe their memory of that building, transforming the inanimate object into a virtually inhabited space, and ascribing a profound intimacy.

"The most affecting work in 'Lines of Control' is a piece by the Berlin-based artist Sophie Ernst, which addresses displacement through interviews with people who lived through it."
Eliza Williams, Frieze Magazine

YSP is committed to supporting and articulating sculpture practice as well as effecting change on an individual and social level. During the exhibition, Ernst will develop a new sculpture. For this project she will work in collaboration with Taha Mehmood, the YSP Learning Team and a group of young people from YSP's Shared Horizon initiative which works with unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK.

The YSP exhibition will be complemented by two important discussion events: Memory of Form at Delfina Foundation in London on 14 May 2012 will consider the sculptural significance and modes of display of HOME. Speakers include Professor Sean Cubitt, Professor in Global Media and Communication at the University of Southampton and Aaron Cezar, Director of Delfina Foundation. At Form of Memory at YSP on 20 June 2012, speakers including Astrid Schmetterling, Lecturer in Visual Cultures, at Goldsmiths and MaruŠ¡ka SvaŠ¡ek, Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Queens University will discuss the experience of home and the narratives of refuge.

A book documenting HOME with essays by Iftikhar Dadi, Taha Mehmood, Helen Pheby and Sophie Ernst as well as commentaries on HOME by Nazmi Al-Jubeh, Yazid Anani, Kamila Shamsi and Salim Tamari will be published by YSP to coincide with this exhibition as well as Ernst's inclusion in the Lines of Control group show at Johnson Museum, Cornell University, USA.

Born in 1972, Ernst first trained as a industrial mechanic with BMW before graduating from the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst in Amsterdam in 2000. She won the Golden Cube award at the 26th Kassel Dokfest awarded for best installation. Ernst works between Asia and Europe and was Assistant Professor at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore (2003-2007).

The exhibition is sponsored by The Mondriaan Foundation with support from the Dutch Embassy in London. The HOME project is made possible by the support of Green Cardamom, Sharjah Foundation and the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture.