An exhibition of four installations that “transform language into visible and physical forms”, curated by Sarah Randal and the YSG. The curatorial conceit of transforming language into visible and physical forms is too easy, I’ve just done it myself with text. I doubt that half of the installations have anything to do with language.
There are other curatorial connections to be made in the exhibition; the four women artists have all transitioned between places with different dominate languages. And otherwise, the curators have made excellent use of the space.
Annette Chang, Shopping Net #3
In the largest of the YSG gallery spaces, Annette Chang, Shopping Net #3 hangs from the ceiling, flowing in and around itself, finally draping on the floor. Since 2012 Chang collects all her receipts folds them on to the net and taped closed. The paper flags recording her purchases as days go by.
In Senye Shen, Shifting Field #1 and #2, print installation of lino and relief prints, footprints and petals, cut from the prints, leads you through the space to the next space. Shen has been cutting many lines cut into lino to deploy the moiré effect; bubbling and rippling along her series of prints. (Sorry I forgot to photograph them.) Shen was gallery sitting on the day that I visited.
Anwar Anwar, Dancing Letters
Anwar Anwar invites the viewer to carefully navigate around, Dancing Letters, the long hanging Arabic letters cut out of paper that almost fill YSG’s projection room. It is a delicate journey around them. Avan Anwar is a Kurdish artist who is referencing the Nalî, a 19th Century Kurdish poet and fellow exile.
Pimpisa Tinpalit, Silence is like an illustration of an unknown, unspoken sutra. The ladder of linked arms reaches to the heavens or at least the ceiling. The gold leaf applied to the hands emphasising their importance to the lesson that we can only imagine. To indulge in language for a moment; the word ‘sutra’ comes from Sanskrit sūtra ‘thread, rule’, from siv ‘sew’, like the black rope that ties the arms together.
Pimpisa Tinpalit, Silence
Black Mark 