The ALAS artist residency exhibition opened on November 8th from 6-9pm.
I’ve included a couple of pictures of the exhibition-taken by my generous fellow ALAS resident AnnaMaria Kardos (including an image of her audio installation in our show). She does great work, please see her blog:
Also see link to watch a short video of my installation:
I am pleased with the results and solved my lighting problem with a hanging spotlight and the small lights inside the dolls house. I was hoping it would be an immersive experience for the viewer and it was fun to see people enter the installation and and really take in all of the details of the dolls house and the video inside of it.
Here is a description of my work that I handed out during our exhibition private view and the Susan Stewart quote was given to me by Marion Michell, a-n blogger:
“Shelley Rae’s video installation explores the concept of childhood memory, history and nostalgia based on wishful longings and half-forgotten visions of the past. Recreating a watered-down version of the complex notion of “Heimat” (German noun which suggests the idea of “homeland”), Rae plays with the idea of the uncanny, or strange but familiar associations which links the changes seen in her once prosperous but now decaying home town of Flint, Michigan to her video installation.
The dolls house represents the plastic or fantasy of the American dream, while the animation, “Don’t go to the East Side” presents the reality of life in post-industrial cities in America and England. As quoted from Susan Stewart’s book ON LONGING: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection—
‘The toy world presents a projection of the world of everyday life; this real world is miniaturized or giganticized in such a way as to test the relation between materiality and meaning.’
Shelley Rae’s work transforms ideas from subconscious memory into symbolic images, leaving the viewer to complete the stories with personal associations, parallel times and experiences.”
Blogging about my photographs, animation and resulting video installation has been a really rewarding experience. Thanks for following my journey:
Here is a link to the animation “Don’t go to the East Side”, 2011, which played on my mobile inside the dolls house:
Gangster illustration at end of video is by the amazing artist Matthew Green:
