With the theme chosen being "Art thou Researching?" we have commisioned a local Research Artist to set up an installation dealing with an important issue to all Europeans. The Installlation which will be on display at St. James' Cavalier between the 22nd and 28th of September 2007 is a work of reasearch in and of itself, and shows how research in its various guises can help us live better lives.
ZONI (video installation) 2007
Zoni is an installation of two videoworks titled Maryan and Rahma and Port of Call conceptualising the "migratory and territorial lines" in different journeys. Documentary rawness and frankness meet in the simple stories of Maryan and Rahma, a Somali mother and daughter currently seeking asylum in Malta. But more than a poignant narrative of the plight of these émigrés, who risked their lives in the dodgy crossing between African borders and European shores, this work hints at the frictional gaps existing between human aspiration, flight, difference and intrusion. Port of Call merges sound and vision in a metaphor for land and longing. The video traces a line to docking point from the sea, navigating to a haven whose identity is obscured by the haze and atmosphere shrouding the portline. The audience is left to engage with the works and create the conceptual associations.
The Zoni installation is running concurrently in another exhibition site across Europe in the Czech Republic at: Dům Umění (House of Arts) in Opava, as part of the Bezruc Opava Festival with the theme of "Europe" - (11 Sept-17 Oct).
Research Context
The work in this installation has been created in the context of a larger research project called Tidal Dialogues. This research remains itself an “itinerant” and ongoing journey and has developed as a trajectory from recent PhD practice-led research concerned with issues of territory and transboundary movement. Tidal Dialogues brings together various aspects of questioning and processes currently taking shape through video, photo and drawing works. Concepts stem from the politicisation and geography of the “line” between land and sea, examining the space where these two great archaeologies meet and remake each other as a metaphor to interrogate notions of "ownership". Various semiologies and signages come together which, beyond their politics, explore the edges of "drawing" where line maps out into motion - as in the diagrammatic video-editing timeline, the ever-shifting shoreline, or other "migratory" lines... be they the trail of a plane, of a ship, of fleeing émigrés... or indeed, the strategic line of a satellite "gaze"...
The material presented in the Exhibition celebrating the event of European Researchers' Night 2007 embodies the thinking processes through sketches, installation plans, raw footage, texts, photos and drawings as part of the working elements creating a context for Tidal Dialogues. The exhibition also includes an installation study of land-sea drawings alluding to the way we partition and “regimentalise” space.
The Artist/Researcher
Ruth Bianco explores various media in an interdisciplinary approach to address issues in a global context. Her practice includes: digital and combined media, video, installation, photography, print and drawing. She received an MA and PhD in Fine Art from the University of Kent at Canterbury and the University College for the Creative Arts, Kent, UK, and her roles include visiting lectureships at the University College for the Creative Arts, UK, and the University of Malta. She shows her work widely on both the local and international platforms. A selection of recent shows include: The Philosophical Brothel, St James Creativity Centre, Valletta; The Search for a Space, Biaggio Steps and The Waterfront, Valletta; Crossings, Amiens, France; Rencontres Internationales Paris/Madrid/Berlin; Femme d’Europe, S.Tropez, France; Citric Gallery, Brescia, Italy. Ground Erasure, Herbert Read Gallery, UK & Waikato University, New Zealand; Touching Land, Canterbury Cathedral, UK; Breakthrough, Grote Kerk den Haag, and Nieuwe EU Landen, The Hague, Netherlands. Current shows: Sealand at the Faux Mouvement Centre d’Art Contemporain, Metz, France; Zoni in the Bezruc Opava Festival, House of Arts, Opava, and Galerie Fiducia, Ostrava, Czech Republic.
