Monday 20 February 2017

Nottingham Contemporary - Photography week 47 (2016)

These are a selection of images from two exhibitions at the Nottingham Contemporary; FOXP2 by Marguerite Humeau and The Encounter That Took a Part of Me by Otobong Nkandia.

The gallery allows photography (but no flash) and like many of the exhibitions at the Contemporary it is an opportunity to engage with the art. It was interesting to watch other people line up their cameras (mainly phone cameras) from the inevitable selfie to those twisting and turning to get a picture and their interpretation of the art.

In the first exhibition, Marguerite Humeau explored the origin language through the mutation of the FOXP2 gene in combination with a series of elephant installations each representing a different stage of the life cycle. It was an imagined world where the mutation leading to language evolved in elephants rather than humans. The combination of sound, soft tones and lighting added mood and depth to the art which I tried to capture including the carpeted platforms - an integral part of tying the exhibits together through colour and shape:


















The second exhibition, The Encounter That Took a Part of Me by Otobong Nkandia, used ideas of rust and decay as metaphors for corruption, ideological shifts and power imbalance. It explored the relationship between different materials and their transformation when exposed to water, air and other invisible particles:



















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