| Anarcadia
is a video projection and accompanying photo-series
by artist Ruth Maclennan, shot among
the desert expanses of Kazakhstan. Into this shifting,
elemental landscape, Maclennan introduces two iconic
characters: an archaeologist and a prospector; each
of them methodically journeying across this apparently
empty but symbolically charged terrain. |
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For both protagonists,
the lie of the land merely prefigures a deeper preoccupation
with what lies beneath – an excavation of
the forgotten legacies and uncertain narratives
of history, as well as an increasingly frenetic
material probing (gathering pace throughout this
part of Central Asia) for pockets of mineral wealth.
These parallel journeys, evoking the magnetic attraction
of the frontier, as an untamed tabula rasa and as
the site of a half-remembered Eden, are implicitly
inflected by the imported iconography of the American
West, as if these remote, uncharted vistas offered
new scope for these enduring myths to be enacted.
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Overlaying rival
trajectories and competing incentives, Maclennan’s
overlapping, often contradictory stories echo the
fundamental indeterminacy of the desert landscape
itself: unreliable, unpredictable, even treacherous,
yet still a beguiling, open-ended canvas for human
hopes and dreams.
Alongside the 30-minute video projection, Maclennan
shows a number of wall-based works. Soviet-era posters
and anonymous historical photo-documents are supplemented
by fragments of archive film, and accompanied by
Maclennan’s own location stills, taken at
the time of the shoot of Anarcadia, or during earlier
trips to Kazakhstan. The exhibition is completed
by her video, Capital – a
product of one of those previous visits. A counterpoint
to these haunting desert scenes, it is a portrait
of the city of Astana, the country’s futuristic
new metropolis and urban powerhouse.
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Images: Ruth Maclennan, Anarcadia,
production stills, 2010. Courtesy the artist |
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Co-commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella
and John Hansard Gallery, in association
with Stills, Edinburgh, and Ffotogallery,
Cardiff. Presented in association with Castlefield
Gallery, Manchester. Funded by Arts
Council England, and with the generous
support of the British Council.
Additional support from The Henry Moore
Foundation. |
Ruth Maclennan is an artist living
and working in London. Her work has been exhibited
internationally, including exhibitions at ICA, London,
Kunsthalle Vienna and London School of Economics.
Her project website www.archwaypolytechnic.org features
her recent work.
Film and Video Umbrella commissions,
curates, produces and presents film, video and other
moving-image works by artists that are staged in
collaboration with galleries and other cultural
partners across the UK. Since the late 1980s, Film
and Video Umbrella has been at the forefront of
this vibrant and expanding area of practice, promoting
innovation through its support of some of the most
exciting figures on the contemporary scene. During
this time, the organisation has commissioned and
produced over 100 different artists’ projects,
ranging from ambitious multi-screen installations
to shorter film and video pieces, as well as numerous
online commissions. www.fvu.co.uk
Artist's
Interview
John Hansard Gallery Director, Stephen
Foster in conversation with artist Ruth
Maclennan.
Video produced by Zemedia, Southampton.
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