Europleasure

This Biennial exhibition consisted of two video installations located at the Europleasure International LTD, Liverpool. I came across this exhibition via my interest in the building itself. While out taking photos for my project, I became enticed by the run down, derelict exterior, unaware that I was taking pictures of a Biennial art piece. As someone with an interest in industrialisation and urbanisation, I was able to look at the building imagining the history- picturing the hundreds of workers clocking in on a daily basis, entering a structure which would have been a huge part of each of their lives. I find it refreshing that such a vast building with such a huge history can be recycled into an art piece without it losing its identity. 

The first was a slightly humorous, site specific piece by Cristina Lucas called, Touch And Go. This featured a series of elderly people throwing rocks through the windows of the building. The video was well filmed and edited, which was one of the main reasons it kept me watching (as I’m not the biggest fan of video art)- Glass shattering in slow motion is always pretty pleasing to watch!

According to the Biennial website “the artist considers the fate of humankind and the built environment as it is caught in the eddies and flows of an unpredictable globalised economy.”

The film ends revealing a message saying ‘Touch And Go’ in the broken/blacked out windows of the building which I was able to go out and observe once I’d left the exhibition. “The expression refers to a momentary act of physical contact, as well as alluding to uncertainty, intermittence and risk.”

The second film was Alfredo Jaar’s Rwanda Project. This was a striking triptych film highlighting the cause and effect of the Rwanda genocide which started in 1994. It contained a couple of the survivors tales, the speech from Bill Clinton, and finishing with a collection of beautifully taken photos containing images of the piles of clothes and skulls of the dead, acting as a fitting tribute to those who lost their lives in this terrible time.

As I was only 4 when this took place, I really had no knowledge of this historic time;

the film really opened my eyes to the events that unfolded over those years, and I found it fascinating till the end.