Distend (Version)
Audio in collaboration with seekersinternational
Presented at In The Offing, group exhibition
Turner Contemporary, Margate (2023)
The work expands on a shared interest in sonic fiction and the deconstructive practices of dub music and versioning to explore cultural memory. The work references the earthquake and landslides that struck Port Royal, Jamaica in 1692, reimagining the submerged landscapes and mythologies, connecting Afrodiasporic aural traditions and the natural world.
Distend considers the embedded soundings that remain encoded in objects, recordings, architectural spaces, technology and memory – a subterranean excavation voicing body and voicing dread, through and from echoing vessels. The collaboration sees new version of a work originally made by Ashley Holmes and commissioned by Yorkshire Sculpture International, presented at Leeds Art Gallery in 2021.
’Turner Contemporary presented In The Offing, a group exhibition devised by renowned Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Leckey (b. 1964, Birkenhead). Embracing a dual role in this exhibition, Leckey served as both artist and editor, utilising the concept of a magazine editorial as his foundation to choreograph an experience that seamlessly blended moving image, sound, light, and painting throughout the galleries. The phrase ‘in the offing’, dating back to the late 1700s, evokes the image of the distant sea visible from the shoreline and carries a sense of anticipation and foreboding, hinting at what lies on the horizon. Leckey commissioned artists and musicians to make work responding to this title and himself presented a new video. The exhibition was the culmination of a multi-year project generously funded by Freelands Foundation as the Principal Supporter.’
Photos by Reece Straw
