- Venue
- Millennium Galleries (The)
- Location
- Yorkshire
You enter a small world of angular walls towered with grids of paper. Each sheet displays one simple sketch. A person’s profile. Everyone similar and yet unique. My mind adapts to the quiet still showcase as I tentatively approach the first wall.
These line drawings are like the end of a story, the full stop to the sentence. The narrative behind them is what sparks my attention. Keterina Seda, an artist from Czech Republic, often invites the public to the centre of the work and this is no exception.
Many of us experience disconnection. Walking around city centres, passing hundreds of stranger’s faces without second glances. Overlooking faces; fascinating with expression, lines and stories. As an artist and human being I want more connection. To learn I want to connect, to interact. So I was excited to explore the latest exhibition at the Millennium Galleries ‘Lisen Profile’ by Katerina Seda. A social art project attempting to reconnect a community broken by modern infrastructure.
Twenty years ago her hometown of Lisen was divided when the central meeting point was replaced by a supermarket and major road, depleting a local sense of community. Lisen Profile is Seda’s process to reconnect people together with the place, encouraging a greater sense of community.
Over 500 participants followed the same guidelines. You would make a profile of the town’s landscape including the town’s church in the skyline, using whatever medium, pencil, clay, paint etc. Then find a persons profile in the horizon your drawing. You take this profile to the streets of lisen, where you search for a face that resembles it. The drawing’s soul mate. Then you connect with this person, confirm they live in lisen and draw their profile in black ink. After this the profiles are turned horizontal so they resemble a horizon again.
It’s a simple idea, but ambitious, consuming a year of hard work from Seda and volunteers, £60.000 in grants from the Contemporary Art Society, and 512 participants from Lisen and around Czech Republic.
Walking through the space there is an interesting variety of drawings. Seda had tried to involve people from all scopes of life, even blind people took part. The simplicity and guidelines of the task, meant that you could lightly taste each individuals creative choices. Most of the profiles resembled a merge between face and landscape. One appeared as if the mouth was a sucking crevice, others had erratic ink splats in the horizon, one had made their profile with tree shapes, another of swirls and many more.
To notice the individual’s choices and expressions was quietly delightful. As a viewer these subtle details brought out a patient and gently intrigued state to experience the work. The presentation asks the viewer to work a little harder, to look at details in the drawings, to give it some time. We viewers are stepping forward to connect with these people, the creators of the art, making an effort to relate to these individuals. So, by viewing this exhibition we become extensions to the social project.
You can leaf through catalogues of all 512 drawings and development pieces of the original landscapes transforming into facial profiles. Katie, exhibition staff, said ‘a lot of people are more interested in these books rather than the display.’ She went on ‘some people are put off initially as it doesn’t appear very visually stimulating’ the books highlight even more creative differences from the participants, showing different interpretations of the profile of the town. Some included people, industrial buildings and animals. It’s a shame if people missed out seeing this work, but as with a lot of conceptual art you have to enquire to understand it and this is part of the fun. However, the process is clearly explained on the walls.
Interviewing the public about their first impressions; reactions were mixed. Michael from Sheffield said it was ‘’Confusing, I wasn’t too sure what it was about. It’s quite a bizarre exhibition.’’ Kirsty a child care student commented “I just thought it was weird, it’s good though.” Sally Roberts MA student at Sheffield Hallam University admitted “it was daunting really; the layout is a little full on.” Whereas another viewer Joyce Carols excitedly responded “How it was laid out I thought it was really cool, that you can walk through, in and out and through it.” One website Culture24 review deems it “a repetitive display of 500 amateur line drawings’’ So this makes me question the presentation of the results and overall success as an art exhibition as well as a big good will gesture.
Also, I believe people put more pressure on the project as it used a £60,000 fund. There is a lot of potential for connecting people and producing inspiring art with this big budget. So though I enjoyed the exhibition, it makes me question, and I’m probably not alone, whether this award money could have been better spent.
I imagine from above the walls would resemble a profile, that of the lisen church perhaps. It splits up the usual space of the gallery, feeling like there is less space, however the simple drawings mean it doesn’t seem cluttered. Perhaps the sharp angular edges of the many A4 sheets and walls mean the display appears more clinical than necessary and the absence of colour throughout makes it feel like a laboratory or scientific study rather than reflecting the warmth created by people interacting.
However, I respect the choices made in displaying it in its stripped down presentation. Stripped down literally to lines, and as I said before you look for the details yourself. It could be that softer angles in the exhibition could have made it more accessible for the general public. I would also have been interested in more details of the participants, for example, their profession so I could make more links between the styles. However, I understand Seda’s decision only to record the participant name, date, their hometown and the name of the local they found and drew. The drawings and the interaction that took place is more relevant.
I am encouraged to see a project like this. Inspired that so many people got involved and then went out, talking to and profiling strangers. It may work easier in smaller towns where the lifestyle is more laid back, I’m not sure people would be so open in Sheffield or London. But this is what these experiments are about, to encourage people to push out of their comfort zone a little, and hopefully find, it can be better. Otherwise these projects wouldn’t need to exist at all. Maybe social barriers are thinner than they seem, I like to put this to the test.
One of the things I enjoyed most seeing this exhibition was meeting and interviewing other gallery goers, sharing ideas and seeing how we had picked up different details and thoughts from the work. Yet again, I feel part of the social project, extending and expanding it. The exhibition in itself creates a focal point for people to come together and connect. Remembering again how important it is.
