Songs for the Storm to Come - Mikhail Karikis @ HOME Manchester

Entering a long, dark room, there are small TV’s on the floor in a cluster, with hyper-close-up which you can’t quite make out, and in the far corner, a massive projection screen playing a cycle of singing, movement, and conversation. As the cycle progresses, the sound design envelops you, panning left to right, creating a dizzying effect.

The piece is a response to alternative futures, imagining what it could be like in England 25 year into the future should rising sea levels continue. The mixture of pragmatic discussion and reviewing of maps with chant-like singing, and simple, recorded breathing is immensely powerful.

Take care of each other, and the planet. We only get one.

Women in Revolt @ Tate Britain

Women in Revolt brings together many forms of feminist art and activism from the 1970s through 1990s, highlighting the innately antagonistic nature of this work. The exhibition is organised chronologically, and this lends itself to a history lesson, but in the best possible way. The sheer excitement and interest that you could feel walking through the galleries was palpable; it was fascinating to see which elements individuals connected with.

The work is intensely personal, and reminded me of many of my own struggles as an artist — including the many times I’ve felt or blatantly been told that the work highlighting these personal observations and experiences was somehow lesser than.

There are so many moving pieces in this collection, it is challenging to highlight even a few. I can only recommend making the time to visit as it tours the UK.

review. Just A Sliver of the Room and Astronomical Landscapes @ Angell Gallery

I made the trek across Toronto this Saturday to take in the current exhibitions at the Angell Gallery, and could not be happier I did. Arriving at the gallery, it is definitely not a space you'd suspect; tucked in the back corner of a business mini-mall, the outside of the gallery is unassuming, which amplified the drama of the first set of pieces, Steve Driscoll's Just A Sliver of the Room even more. 

Taking a fairly large and open space, Driscoll's vibrant and reflective landscapes jump out against the white walls. Their positioning around the space however, is what is most dramatic. Not only are the paintings themselves steeped in an ecstatic energy, but they are presented in a space filled with black water, which the viewer crosses on a board walk constructed across the space. The resulting immersion in this space which is both bright and dark as well as endlessly reflective has a fantastic result. 

Steve Driscoll

Flashes of Silence, 2016

Urethane on board

You move through this space into the second gallery where Dan Hudson's Astronomical Landscapes take the focus. Each of these long and wide lenticular photographs have a magical quality to them. Every perspective in the room offers a new version of each image, so that the viewer is truly transfixed.  The changeable nature of the world around us is present and comforting in the photographs. 

Dan Hudson

Queen Louise, 2015

Lenticular photograph

Leaving this space and walking back across the board walk, one is struck by the new perspective offered, and the reflection of the bright colours in the black water gains new significance. 

Overall both collections are excellent, however it is in tandem that they have the most notable power over our recollection of space and time.