EXILE EXHIBITION – THIS GOOD EARTH film – Sam Birt’s COLLAGES
“We all carry within us our places of exile,
our crimes and our ravages.
But our task is not to unleash them on the world,
it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.”
ALBERT CAMUS
An Exhibition about Oppression, Alienation and Exile
Cedoux Kadima, Ricky Romain and Robert Golden have created an exhibition of painting, photography and film, accompanied by a sound scape. The exhibition will be innovative, poetic, and dramatic, fusing the arts evolving into a dramatic whole. It is concerned with the social and personal impact of alienation, torture and physical exile. All three artist’s lives have been affected by exile, are intimate with its consequences and have manifested this in differing ways within their work.
They have been supported by Arts Council England, Bridport Town Council, Bridport Arts Centre and The National Lottery to develop the project to the point where they know what it will consist of, how it will be presented, and how it will appeal to a broad audience between the ages of 11 and up.
The exhibition consists of 12 montages by Cedoux revealing the journey he is still on from being a working artist in London for 6 years to receiving a Home Office letter threatening deportation back to the Democratic Republic of Congo, from which he fled for helping street children learn drawing and painting.
As viewers move from montage to montage they can listen to a commentary of spoken texts, sounds and music that addresses aspects of his ordeal. From Robert Golden there are 12 composite pieces of photographs and texts about alienation. This leads to the key painting by Ricky Romain that is divided into 72 frames. They relate the story of 36 good people and their 36 substitutes who exist in the world to balance evil.
Beyond the painting is a 30 minute poetic film about alienation, exclusion, exile and evil.
The three artists are offering a series of workshops, conversations and talks to young and old, which may be arranged with local arts educational or NGO officers.
Ricky Romain:: http://www.rickyromain.com
Cedoux Kadima: http://cedouxkadima.blogspot.co.uk
Robert Golden: https://robertgoldenpictures.com
Exhibition Schedule
Event details:
All events need to be ticketed including the free ones.
EXHIBITION OPEN
Wednesday 2 December – Tuesday 22 December 2020
Tuesday to Saturday (see exceptions below) 10am – 4pm
The Allsop Gallery
Bridport Arts Centre
South Street
Bridport Dorset DT6 3NR
https://www.bridport-arts.com
tel: 01308 427 183
PREVIEW
Wednesday 2nd December 5pm – 8pm
(see guidelines for a safe visit to the gallery.)
A Conversation in the gallery
6.30 – 7.15 pm a free ticketed event
with Robert Golden, Cedoux Kadima and Ricky Romain
hosted by Neil Oliver
https://www.iofc.ch/neil-oliver
“Modern Slavery” a talk by Samantha Knights QC in the Allsop Gallery
Saturday Dec 5. 2pm – 3pm a free ticketed event
Modern slavery and trafficking are prevalent across the globe.
The UK has a significant number of victims and survivors within its borders.
Many of these people are in fact British citizens and EU nationals.
This talk will look at the legal and policy framework applicable in the UK to slavery and trafficking.
Samantha Knights QC is a practising barrister at Matrix
specialising in public law and civil liberties, with a focus on modern slavery.
A CONCERT
by Ricky Romain, Sitar and Udit Pankhania, Tabla
Tuesday December 8, 5.30pm
Concert at 6.00pm –7.00 pm a £5 ticketed event
LOCAL AND WORLD MUSICIANS
come together to celebrate the United Nations International Day of Human Rights
Thursday December 10 7.30pm – 9.30pm a £5 ticketed event
Musicians from Bridport and the surrounding area
join together with musicians from Syria, Kenya, Sudan, India
and the Democratic Republic of Congo with our community.
“Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the
right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share
in scientific advancement and its benefits.” Cultural rights are, therefore, inseparable from
human rights, as recognized in Article 5 of the 2001 UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity,
and can be defined as the right of access to, participation in and enjoyment of culture.”
In partnership with Bridport’s Rights Respecting Town and Bridport’s Refugee Support Campaign.
Robert Golden talking about
Storytelling and Finding a Voice in Film and Photography
Saturday December 12, 2pm – 4pm a free ticketed event
In the gallery
ARTIST AS CITIZEN
Robert Golden and Ricky Romain
in conversation about creative collaboration and social responsibility
With David Powell and friends, exploring human rights through music
Tuesday Dec 15, 6pm – 7.30 pm a free ticketed event
In the gallery
BRIDPORT WELCOMES REFUGEES – A Conversation
ON THE UNITED NATION’S INTERNATIONAL MIGRANT’S DAY
with songs from Idle Notes -Diana Takezoe and Maurice Blogg
FRIDAY December 18, 6pm – 7.30pm
in the The Allsop Gallery (open 5.30pm) a £5 ticketed event
The Bridport Refugee Support Campaign,
Bridport’s Rights Respecting Town,
Place of Sanctuary, Bridport
THIS GOOD EARTH
On soil and climate change, land and species destruction, farming, food and illness
This independently made 92 minute documentary shows the relationships between soil erosion, toxic poisoning of our water supply, the tilling no-tilling/meat-less-meat arguments about the sequestration of greenhouse gases, global warming, the problems of the long food chain from farmer’s gates to dinner plates, the rise of ultra-processed foods, degenerative diseases and obesity, the increasing gap between the life spans of rich and poor people, access to knowledge about and affordability of food across income groups, therefore the underlining questions about equality and human rights and the legal responsibility of CEO’s who are knowingly destroying our planet and people’s health and well being. It also offers solutions.
LOCAL AND GLOBAL
Although much of the film is about West Dorset, in southwest England, the messages are universal. Doctors, bakers, cooks, social workers, farmers, scientists and professors are interviewed, and in particular Professor Tim Lang, the UK’s most well known expert on food security. Professors Jules Pretty and Erik Millstone reveal the stark truth about corporations, people’s diets and illnesses.
See the website and the beautiful trailer here
SAM BIRTS NEW COLLAGES
I have know of Sam Brit’s work for a number of years. This latest group are being exhibited in a gallery in the Veneto in northern Italy, beginning 29 October 2020.
I have approached looking at them in several different ways: quickly for a first impression and a gut response, followed by a closer look for a few minutes to see how I could respond to more visual provacations, and then a longer look, asking questions of them and myself. What is wonderful about these transitional viewings is that it they have allowed me an ever more detailed appreciation of each of the collages, which has been pure pleasure.
ZEIRGEIST PASSION
09 and 58 are my closest friends, followed quickly by 7-11 and 10-1. This may be because the first two are the hottest, they burn with anger and passion and a powerful sense of the zeitgeist with all of its unfairness, and inequality and economically sponsored imperialist brutality.
WORLD ON FIRE
I think that 09 is amazingly clever visually. From a distance or when seen small, it appears to be something about architectural columns alluding to our pompous ‘stable’ civilization, then the destroyed building appears, and moments later the world is on fire and finally, when viewed close enough or large enough, the fleeing water buffalo fill the air with the vast horror we are committing against other species as we destroy the earth and western civilization. It’s beautiful visually and narratively powerful. The torn edges are like the torn world and ripped lives of so many billions of people on our shared planet.
58 is also filled with desperation, a sense of strength, enduring and helplessness surrounded by or embedded in misery and poverty.
TOTEMS
And then 10-1, a totemic image proclaiming the simplicity of our species past existence, pre-farming perhaps and therefore previous to the idea of private as opposed to shared wealth. But now the totem has been collected, framed and isolated from the surrounding world by the white spaces becoming ragged white bars imprisoning the memories of a more communal past.
LIKE PAUL CELAN
Then there is you, ripped in half or (?) attempting, like the insistence of the green plant, to grow again, wherever and whatever the adversity, to become whole again. This one eludes me but it is very handsome and fine, in fact, almost refined. The delicacy of the shapes and colour create a formal beauty, which, like a Paul Celan poem, calls out to say, ‘come on, somewhere in the world of humans and perhaps in your (my) unconsciousness you know what I mean’. Whatever, it is somehow deeply evocative.
The last 3, with their frigid whites and blues are more, what? Perhaps more cerebral.
THUG SPECIES
But their quiet observations about the conflict between the modern (architected) world and the world of nature it disregards as it destroys it (in 7-10 and 11-1), carries on in this other more frosty distanced view of our crazy culture, jumbled, conflicted and leading to a fragmented life, as the images suggest. Perhaps they are more hopeful, suggesting that we, the thug species with our rationality, technology and avarice, are really losing the battl
All very satisfying with a lot of food for thought, deep observations and sensing the zeitgeist.
Her work continues to evolve and somehow, intellectually, creatively in terms of form and narrative, it is becoming more and more profound. Perhaps she is passing from the state of knowledge we gain in early middle age, to the state of wisdom some gain in later middle age, but whatever, it is both a delight and a welcome gift to view.
