Lynne Hocking took a trip to the Look Again project space for an immersive experience back in March and shares her thoughts.
The exhibition formed part of a new series of events co curated by Look Again & We Are Here Scotland and gave viewers a chance to participate in activities that played with the day to day and structural biases faced by many, filtered through creative activities with a lighter touch than the often difficult and challenging conversations that are required. Friend of the blog and artist Lynne Hocking kindly agreed to write some thoughts about the show, the first in what I hope will be a long list of guest contributors. Check it out below and thanks to everyone who's continued to support our work sharing different corners of creativity from across the North East!
On a sunny March Saturday in Aberdeen, a gaggle of friends and I took ourselves to the Look Again project space on St Andrews Street for COMPOSITION ‘with red and yellow’ by Rudy Kanhye. COMPOSITION is the first of two commissioned responses to an open call from We Are Here Scotland in collaboration with Look Again, designed to amplify the talents of black people and people of colour artists in Scotland through a programme of activities based in NE Scotland.
Rudy Kanhye is a Glasgow-based “interdisciplinary artist, curator and culinary designer of Mauritian heritage, interested in exploring untold histories and promoting art that is created for communities”. (I stole that last bit from the exhibition flyer, in case you’re wondering). The exhibition was accompanied by an online artist talk and discussion hosted by We Are Here Scotland that dug into themes of consumption, exchange and story-telling, plus a recently-released podcast interview with Creative-Me-Podcast (listen here).
The exhibition was a series of inter-related installations that all invited exchange – in a variety of forms – with and between those who entered the exhibition space.
There was a mash-up of ping-pong/squash/badminton/tennis, where the net in the ping pong table was replaced by a garden trellis the same width as the table, higher than a ping pong net but much more porous. The table was surrounded by red and yellow taped markings on the wall and floor akin to those on squash/badminton/tennis courts. We took turns to knock the pong ball around – through the gaps and over the top of the trellis, off the wall, around the space (no invigilators were harmed), getting competitive, laughing hard, trying to remember the rules for various racquet sports, making up our own rules for this game.
Printed recipes for Mauritian curries (one red, one yellow) could be taken home to make later, along with small jars of spices to support the making of the curries. These recipes might be familiar to some, not to others. What do we consume, and why? How do we consume? What are the ways in which we are supported or encouraged to do this? How do we change what we expect to consume? Who sets these rules, and how do we challenge/change them? Rule sets for selecting spice jars had (apparently) already been established by exhibition attendees before us – take the next available jar from the left. I selected jars from the middle; nobody stopped me. Rules can be changed. Our perceptions of rules can be wrong.
Risograph prints stating “eat the rich” could also be taken home. Removing artwork from the wall during the course of an exhibition, and without paying for it, goes against all we understand the rules of an exhibition to be. We were actively encouraged to be subversive in our thoughts and our actions.
The prints, spices and time playing ping pong could all be exchanged for red, yellow or gold tokens available at the entrance – small plastic discs etched with a dodo, the symbol of Mauritius, made in collaboration with Peacocks. The tokens could be purchased via a donation of any amount or simply taken for free. They could also be taken home as a keepsake, without exchanging them for access to anything. And everything could be accessed without the need for tokens. Rules suggested, open to interpretation, not enforced. Ours to make, and modify.
The works draw on Kanhye’s
family history, particularly stories and traditions passed on within families away
from their original context, learned through repetition across generations around
the world. A hi/story of Mauritius itself, and of Kanhye’s family, whose father
was from Mauritius Island. As someone also making work related to family
history, there are clear resonances around how much we reveal about our
hi/stories, how strongly those hi/stories influence our own identities, and to
what extent they “belong” to us. What stories do we tell ourselves and others?
The exhibition was a playful exploration of what we consume, what we exchange our time for, and what value we place on these. It challenges us to consider the – often unspoken and unacknowledged – rules that we operate within when we consume, exchange and value. Who makes the rules? What are the rules? (Why) Do we observe rules we didn’t make? What do we share, and with who? Implicitly, it asks is to consider issues of institutionalised discrimination and barriers to access; and to imagine different ways of being, for ourselves and others.
This was my favourite kind of artistic (and life) intervention, asking more than it answered and encouraging us to imagine alternative futures.
Words by Lynne Hocking for Creative Aberdeen.
