Beyond The Pale (Zoe Childerley)

BEYOND THE PALE

Berwick Visual Arts, 27th October - 20th January, 2018-19

Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, February - May, 2019

A commission on behalf of photographer/visual artist Zoe Childerley to research and interpret audio recordings, photographic documentation and written responses to the artist’s exhibition Beyond The Pale.

‘Beyond the Pale explores a narrative around territory, land and belonging on the Anglo-Scottish border and beyond and inspired is by the artist walking the length this border during an artist’s residency in Northumberland in 2016.

…

The walk coincided with the Brexit vote and Zoe discovered that the border continues to be a focus of debate over sovereignty raising issues of nationalism and identity, which is reflected in the anxiety over the refugee crisis and international political zeitgeist.’ (www.zoechilderley.co.uk)

The resulting work, a text-based film and poem which emerged between the photographic works in the gallery spaces. Exploring conflict, territory and the ambivalence of nature, the resulting work looped, with no indication as to the poem’s beginning, middle or end, referencing the artist’s journey through the border of Scotland and England, with the inability to detect one country from the other and the disillusionment of borderers to national identity, lost in the duality of two narratives, entrenched in the darkness of history.