Role Control

About

Saskia Holmkvist's exhibition presents a major new video installation exploring notions of credibility, social strategy, and how we all engage in role-play. In Saskia Holmkvist's best-known work Interview with Saskia Holmkvist (2005), the artist hired a media relations expert to train her to deliver a short statement about the themes of authenticity in her practice. The video documents Holmkvist rehearsing this statement with apparent sincerity and authority, but in doing so, a neat self-referential moment occurs as the work undermines and questions the authenticity of the situation.

This work in particular connects two of Holmkvist's main interests which are the focus of this exhibition; the common languages of information such as factual documentary, and PR and marketing strategies, she elucidates on how these can be manipulated as well as actually being a source of manipulation.

The exhibition presents her newly commissioned film productions Role Control and In Character. The works develop on Holmkvist's research into self-presentation and role-play, taking as their departure point the psychology of meetings, job interviews and interrogations. They emphasize the preparations for such situations, looking at the strategies employed for coaxing, mediating, cross-examining and disclosing information.

Alongside these new commissions, the exhibition will present a selection of existing works, including System (2001) which first brought her to national prominence in her native Sweden. This will be the first solo exhibition of work by Saskia Holmkvist in the UK.