Desert Island
Event date: June 13, 2013 17:30
Tagged as: culture narratology
Retail Unit formerly known as "Early Learning Centre"
The Gates Shopping Centre
1 Framwelgate Bridge
Durham
County Durham
DH1 4SJ
Places: durham
Click on a thumbnail for a slideshow view
The Institute of Advanced Study and Empty Shop present Desert Island, an exhibition by Toby Phips Lloyd in response to theme of ‘narrating time’.
The exhibition uses the format of classic radio show Desert Island Discs to explore culture and the formation of self-identity; recurring theme Lloyd’s practice.
Lloyd’s practice examines interpretations of the self and the relationship it has with the surrounding environment. His work has been described as masochistic and ‘banal in the best possible sense of the word’.
In his installations Lloyds creates original environments that play host to his films as well as being a physical and emotional place which the audience can enter, so as to have a direct relationship with the subject matter. Together, the films and the installations work to present two or more versions of the same or contradicting reality and question the difference between fiction and reality by creating a space that is part of both.
After party at Empty Shop HQ on Thursday 13th from 8pm.
June 13, 2013 @ 5:30 pm – June 16, 2013 @ 4:00 pm
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Opening night was great
I went down to the opening night of this exhibition. I was pretty impressed. The thing I got from it was a consideration of disclosure in self-narration, and the nuanced ways in which Toby told his story. He portrayed his teenage self through self-consciously reconstructing his bedroom, and when I asked him about it, he acknowledged the tensions between honesty and seeking to portray oneself as one wishes to be seen.
The major device however was a video loop, in which Toby interviews himself (via the magic of editing) to produce an imagined episode of "desert island discs". Notable tunage included The Fall, Aphex Twin, Devo and others I can't recall. In his self-interview he again confronted the contrast between our authentic interior life and how we wish to be seen, which was humorous yet touching.
I was struck by the setting of the exhibition- an abandoned retail unit providing a space to confront these issues, alone in an ocean of corporate mediocrity such as you might find in any other shopping centre. Was the desertion implied in the exhibition title a reference to the anomie of the surroundings? Was the reference to an island to suggest a better place to rest, reflect and renew amongst the desert of commodities? I didn't draw the artist or curators too far into these questions, so perhaps you can go and make up your own minds.
The exhibition is open on Saturday 15th June and Sunday 16th June 2013 from noon to 4pm. Make of it what you will.