VIDEO INSTALLATION
DISTANTLY CONNECTED
This work was recently selected for the XXVII Premio de arte. Año 2016 “SANTA ISABEL de ARAGÓN, REINA de PORTUGAL”, an important art competition held each year in Zaragoza, Spain.
“Distantly Connected” is a video installation and it is presently on show in El Palacio de Sástago. The exhibition runs until the 28th of August.
This work was done while talking to my mother on Skype. As my mother talked I drew on top of the computer screen. The work went through different stages and evolved in layers. I also projected her image onto a the canvas and continued to draw around her face as she read out poems.
My mother and I have always shared an interest in poetry. She chose to read out a poem called The Islands, by the New Zealand writer Charles Brasch in which he talks about the distance between New Zealand and the rest of the world.
The poem is also about departures, which has special meaning for my mother, not only because of the constant departures we have made over the years, each time I have returned to Spain which is where I live, but also because of my father´s departure. He died in September 2015.
The poem my mother reads aloud to me in the video is called The Islands, by Charles Brasch (New Zealand, 1909 - 1973)
The Islands
Always, in these islands, meeting and parting
shake us, making tremulous the salt-rimmed air;
divided and perplexed the sea is waiting,
birds and fishes visit and disappear.
The future and the past stand at our doors,
beggars who for one look of trust will open
worlds that can answer our unknown desires,
entering us like rain and sun to ripen.
Remindingly beside the quays, the white
ships lie smoking; and from their haunted bay
the godwits vanish towards another summer.
Everywhere in light and calm murmuring
shadow of departure; distance looks our way
and none knows where he will lie down at night
(Charles Brasch)
