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Media Art Bath is delighted to announce the exhibition of a new commission by Gail Pickering, BRUTALIST PREMOLITION featuring both film and performance.
The performance and film works of Gail Pickering are characterized by a layering of performative fictions, constructed and sourced through specific sites and historical or political events. Her recent video works explore ideas of highly authored forms of collaboration. Working with both amateur and professional actors, she devises scenarios or situations in which the discrepancy between individual and ârole' is emphasised and questioned.
BRUTALIST PREMOLITION takes as its starting point the snaking concrete housing estate Robin Hood Gardens, designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, a key example of post-war New Brutalist architecture intended as a utopian form of large scale social housing. Pickering works from the interior of the architecture, producing a film from within one of the flats on the estate. The film shows a resident family casting professional actors to play themselves. Embedding familiar faces from British television and film, we see the actors repeating well-rehearsed scenes from their inventory of past roles. As the work progresses, the actors begin to occupy the flat where their theatricality and professionalism is played out alongside the participation of the family.
For its presentation at Arnolfini, Pickering will produce a special performance alongside the film, extending the works interests into the realm of a live event.
For more information and tickets please contact Bridget Crone or Lucy Sames on 01225 442 591, or email: info@mediaartbath.org.uk.
BRUTALIST PREMOLITION has been commissioned by Media Art Bath with support from the Henry Moore Foundation and is also included in a solo exhibition, as part of âNought to Sixty' - 13-20 October 2008, Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London. www.ica.org.uk
Media Art Bath championing contemporary art and ideas through the development of bold new work.
NOTES TO EDITORS
GAIL PICKERING works with performance, live installation and video. She has presented several performances and live installations in recent years, most notably her solo exhibitions at Gasworks, London (2008), Galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris (2007) and Matt's Gallery, London (2004). Pickering has shown widely in group exhibitions including most recently Here We Dance, Tate Modern (2008), Neither Either Nor Or, Kunstverien Stuttgart (2008) and The Sensible Stage, The Whitechapel Gallery (2008). Pickering will be showing âDissident Sunset' (2007) at the Palais De Tokyo, Paris, in October and November of 2008.
BRUTALIST PREMOLITION actors Raji James and Babita Pohoomull are familiar British television, theatre and film actors, both have previously played long running roles in the BBC soap âEastenders'. Raji James played a leading role in the 1999 film âEast is East' and numerous roles in various BBC TV dramas including âThe Bill' âHolby City' âCasualty' and âDr Who'.
ROBIN HOOD GARDENS ESTATE is in Poplar, East London. Completed in 1972 and designed by Alison and Peter Smithson (the well-known proponents of New Brutalism in
the UK), the estate was designed as a manifestation of the Smithson's socially utopian ideals. The architecture is characterised by its use of streets in the sky broad
walkways designed to enable as social space for the inhabitants.
Characterised by a strong community beset by poor building maintenance, Robin Hood Gardens is now facing demolition.
Media Art Bath is a publicly funded organisation and registered charity based in Bath, South West England. Dedicated to championing contemporary art and ideas through the development of bold new work, Media Art Bath works with artists to produce new work for presentation in Bath, the South West and across the UK.
Media Art Bath, Abbey Chambers
Kingston Buildings, off York Street, Bath, BA1 1LT
Tel : +44 (0) 1225 442 591
Registered Charity Number: 1124134