- Venue
- Edwardian Cloakrooms
- Starts
- Tuesday, November 25, 2014
- Ends
- Sunday, November 30, 2014
- Address
- Woodland Road/Park Row Clifton Bristol BS1 5LS
- Location
- South West England
Quies is a site-specific exhibition of work by three multidisciplinary artists who have been invited to respond to the physical space and tacit history of Bristol’s Edwardian Cloakrooms by Sightlines Projects. Of particular interest is the fact that the cloakrooms have ‘lain still’ for decades and been left virtually unchanged, as if in a state of limbo or stasis from which they could conceivably return at any given moment.
Dublin-based artist Nicola Lane will play on this possibility with the creation of a mise-en-scene that reimagines the past life of a functioning Edwardian ladies washroom using subtly inscribed soap works and sensory triggers such as sounds of running water, the smell of soap and flower waters, and the look and feel of crisp linens. While Lane’s work alludes to feminine rituals of days gone by, it also considers the introduction of facilities such as the Cloakroom in the context of Edwardian philanthropy and the social contract.
In the Gentlemen’s Cloakroom, a sculptural installation of wax and plaster castings by Wiltshire-based artist Beth Biddiss will manifest ghostly traces of passers-by who have long since departed, whilst Irish artist Karl Somers’ sound pieces draw on a timeless aspect of visiting any public place—the age-old guilty pleasure of eavesdropping.
