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Rachelle Viader Knowles: Home and Other Fictions

Rachelle Viader Knowles: Home and Other Fictions
Library Shelf Location 18.KNOW
Publication Date 2003
Description As a British artist, born in Bristol and brought up in Cardiff by her Mauritian mother and uncle, Rachelle Viader Knowles’, who is now based in Canada, is acutely aware of the sense of transience, rootlessness, longing and loss that accompanies the freedom to move. In ‘Home and Other Fictions’, Knowles attempts to explore that blurred space between ‘here’ and the fictional/metaphorical ‘there’; the ‘other’ place where life is/was better, safer, simpler, happier, friendlier, richer... more secure. In this exhibition, home is a word that lives somewhere between story and telling. HOME AND AWAY is a silent, 12-monitor video installation that attempts to bring together the artists closest friends from the UK and from Canada. Each video represents a different household by presenting a static shot of the living room interior, centred on a sofa or armchair. For the majority of each hour-long videotape, nothing much 'happens'... pets mill around and the light slowly changes – just enough activity to situate the imagery between moving sequence and static moment. Intermittently, participants enter the screens, some pause briefly in front of the camera, some take their time, but all are held in a still portrait before getting up and exiting the screen. The piece addresses a sense of longing for a unity that can never be, and explores the relationship between people and places. The title of the work references the Australian soap opera popular in the UK in the late eighties and early nineties and this reference to television and ‘domestic drama’ extends to the ‘reality-based’ programmes that are currently pervasive. The multiple silent screens are also suggestive of web cams and surveillance, presenting multiple portals in to other lives.
ISBN 1900029103
Quantity 1
Pages 15
Editors Rachelle Viader Knowles, Hannah Firth
Author Nicola King
Formats Catalogue, Paperback
Publisher Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
Related Artist Rachelle Viader Knowles
Months November 2003, December 2003, January 2004
Category Photography
Keywords Surveillance, Home (concept)
Related Gallery Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
Language English

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