Wendy Haines reviews Ecocentrix, an exhibition curated by Helen Gilbert with Dani Phillipson as assistant curator.
I had not been to an ‘interactive’ exhibition before, so when faced with one, I was not sure what to expect. Interactive can mean anything from getting to press a few buttons, to being chased by a chainsaw-wielding maniac (thank you Punch Drunk). Ecocentrix is a collaborative exhibition curated by Helen Gilbert of Royal Holloway University of London and assistant-curator Dani Phillipson, which brings together the work of several international artists to explore indigenous cultures and environmentalism. A mixture of installations, public interventions, film, performance art and gourds, it provided a varied insight into cultures unfamiliar to us, and the far-reaching effects of globalization – much more exciting than button-pressing.
The exhibition was constructed in Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, a rustic warehouse space near the South Bank in London. The work is spread across four floors, creating an immersive labyrinth of artwork that stimulates all the senses. There is something about our postmodern obsession with space and place that draws art into these large, open and seemingly defunct spaces, so they may become ‘places’. The warehouse finds a cultural presence though it’s adoption of art, allowing itself to be a multi-sensual place of international exploration.
On the first floor, The Edward Curtis Project, a collaboration between playwright Marie Clements and photojournalist Rita Leistner, was my first encounter. Celebrating Edward Curtis’ archive of work with Native Americans, Leistner’s photo-documentation of indigenous peoples in modern and traditional dress is accompanied by reflective poetry from Clements. Together they question the ethics of preserving or documenting culture. While I peruse the photo-exhibition, sounds of hysteria creep in from the next room. Many of the exhibits blend together like this, creating a seamless thematic journey through a livened space.
The scale of work within the exhibition is overwhelming for a simple review, but some works had a lasting impact. On the second floor the sails of kites from Festival de Barriletes Gigantes, an event from Day of The Dead in Sumpango Sacatepéquez, Guatemala, were on display. They allow ancestors to revisit the world, forming colourful tableaus of local, social issues in their one-day life. To see something so defined by it’s local, communal origin in the centre of London was baffling. It stimulates ideas of the ownership of meaning by communities. Similarly, Julie Nagam’s Singing Our Bones Home on the fourth floor, uses sound, projection and an authentic wigwam to pay tribute to indigenous people buried outside Toronto. Sitting inside the wigwam is utterly surreal, with landscapes projected around you that transport you out of one space and into another. The conflict of space between the warehouse, wigwam or the kites transcends ordinary, physical experience of art. There is no distance – you participate in both spaces as a liminal voyeur.
An unusual addition to the exhibition is Irma Poma Canchumani’s gourds from Peru. These surprisingly large gourds are dried and intricately carved, resulting in an unexpected beauty. They depict scenes relating to climate change and the destruction of our ecosystem, but the detail is so precise it would take hours to take it all in; their complexity reflects the scale of the problem they’re trying to represent. It’s neat and engaging, but the most affecting piece by far was The REDress Project on the third floor.
A simple premise, but real impact. Jaime Black’s installation focuses on the hundreds of disappearances of aboriginal women across Canada, paying tribute to them through red dresses that hang from the ceiling. Somehow the dresses embody both presence in their representation and absence in their emptiness, so you feel a connection to the lack of these women you never knew. The installation offers you the chance to write or draw on a projected white board in red pen. This was one of the ‘interactions’ that was easier to spot. Some of the others were not obvious, and it’s hard to escape from the ‘don’t touch the artwork’ narrative that art galleries have given us.
The exhibition is powerful and reflexive. It debates itself throughout, asking if you can explore a specific culture without ‘othering’ it. Focusing on difference could create segregation, but celebrating difference promotes tolerant social attitudes. The tying together of indigenous cultures and environmentalism in Ecocentrix has produced a myriad of intriguing material that highlights how aboriginal culture can be tarnished by Western greed. It brings about intelligent social, political and cultural debate in a part of London that rides high on globalization, and yearns for some perspective.
