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Stills from 'Balnakiel'
"I didn't leave the house for 42 days," says one resident of northwest Scotland's Balnakiel community. At certain times of the year, extreme weather conditions prevent people from going outside. Adding to the already ferocious atmosphere are the Royal Air Force's training activity including low-flying jets dropping bombs and the tensions between indigenous villagers, 'incomers,' who are craftspeople who move to the area in search of a new way of life, and military personnel. For residents, this combination of factors evokes an overall sentimentality of being under siege.
The remote, unforgiving landscape that Balnakiel and nearby local village Durness occupy were home to artist Shona Illingworth from age two to seventeen and her recollections of enduring the weather, social tensions and military presence serve as inspiration for her recent exhibition, 'Balnakiel'. The artist adamantly asserts that this work is not about her personal experiences; it is an investigation of cultural, social, and collective memory. Although, she does reveal that she and her family were considered 'incomers.'
The exhibition consists of a 30-minute film in which a young girl on the verge of adolescence serves as our guide through the vast landscape surrounding Balnakiel, as well as particular interior spaces, amidst intense wind, rain and sometimes during military exercises. There is also a short video featuring the sea during a storm, drawings, and a large black and yellow painting of a grid reminiscent of the design found on military watchtowers.
Illingworth describes Balnakiel as, "Isolated. There is a 50-meter single-track road. In some places, there are no trees or grass, the landscape is ancient with very early geographic formations. It is a landscape that does not sustain life and is sparsely populated. The military presence has been there since WWII. "There were three diverse communities - and tension existed between them due to cultural and social differences. For the locals, Balnakiel is the centre of the world, for the military it was the front line, and for the 'incomers' it is the edge of world."
According to the artist, the themes running through the exhibition, particularly in the film, are centred on ownership and belonging. She is, "interested in exploring the spatial juxtapositions" such as those occupied by the civilians in comparison to the military. "The military activity is based on remembering, through repetition and exercise, and rehearsing, much like memory. I was also exploring scale, the small personal radio in one of the buildings versus the large radio used by the military, and ranges, small interiors versus sweeping landscapes representative of cultural memories."
Unsurprisingly, viewers might assume that the young girl in the film was a self-reference, but that was not Illingworth's intention. "I chose a girl at the peak of early adolescence because that is such a curious and critical age for memory. My objective for using a girl of that age was to socially contextualise the work; she is right on the cusp of childhood and adulthood. For the viewer the girl provides another access and a contract to the military world."
The long histories that Illingworth refers to pertain to the generations of turmoil that cultivated the area's "dark and violent history" that she feels is still unresolved. It is evident in the many ruined townships that occupy the landscape as well as the tension between the enormous cultural and social differences that created incredibly different perceptions. In the film we hear a former incomer use the phrase 'hippies living in squalor' to describe how he felt he was perceived by the locals.
Illingworth clarifies, "If you imagine it as a kind of system then there is this constant shift in pressure and tension and one's own private memories might not correlate with the collective memories and the ways in which a place is represented."
Illingworth's interest in the intersection of art and science is enhanced by her relationship with neuropsychologist Martin A. Conway, who she worked with on this project. When asked how this relationship began, she said, "We met in 2003 while working on the exhibition Memory and Forgetting, where artists were invited to work with scientists to explore the intricacies of human memory. But how does a neuropsychologist assist a film artist? The artist explains, "Central to our conversations is the idea of memory through experience, autobiographical memory. The idea is that one can never have the same memory twice. Each memory is a constructive and influenced by where you are now and so that makes memory an incredibly dynamic and active agent in the present."
Illingworth's decision to work with film to investigate memory is all about timing. "Film is a segment of time and it creates different intensities, there is a definable length and duration within which you can create a multi-layered space, layers of elements, a contestation of space and shifting intensities that creates an allusion."
Such an allusion concludes the film. A rock formation close to shore is bombed during a military exercise but there is no sound. "This is something that I want the viewer to internalise," says Illingworth. You could hear the bomb dropping because of your memory of what you know it sounds like.
Stephanie Cotela Tanner
Shona Illingworth: Balnakiel
17 February - 4 April at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton
7 February - 1 May 2010 at Wolverhampton Art Gallery
Sponsored by Film and Video Umbrella www.fvu.co.uk
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| Stephanie Cotela Tanner is an art historian and writer who contributes to Art Review, Soho House, Art Rabbit, Dazed & Confused, Flavorpill and The Art Book. You can read more of her writing on art on her blog. |
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| Published on 11-04-2009 |
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