- writing across water -

- writing across water -

This exhibition research project - writing across water - is the first part of a series of three exhibitions that looks at the notion of belonging, and the idea of movement across places.

“The belonging I write about emerges as liberation from the sway of a place; it is a belonging to people in places.” 1.

It also looks at this notion of journeys a bit like Sinbad who went off into the world to explore the new, returning to his homeland laden down with stories. Where I live at present they tell me the word for ‘writing’ in Arabic derives from the word “gathering.” The writer gathers together information/antidote etc and reshapes it.

So the ideas for this exhibition writing across water contains nothing new in the sense that this body of work is still following the ideas that have funded my work of the last decade or so. They are about the new experiences/stories that follow the movements and patterns that fill up my working life. And as Edward Said remarked;

It is the things that we share across cultures that are interesting to me and not just the acknowledgement of the differences.

The problem for this body of art and for the set of stories in this exhibition, is to be able to hold onto my own story and whilst knowing it to be formed in a common humanity, hope at the same time that it maybe of interest to others. I have always put words/text alongside the images and objects I work with. It just seems to me to be the way to tell the complete idea. This combination I feel, reflects the way we move in the world.

Exhibition Approach and the viewer’s part in this enterprise
From August 2nd – August 10th the gallery will operate in such a way that visitors to the space will be invited to use the writing materials on the table in the PKW space and respond in personal narrative form to the three words - house, home, homeland.

These stories will be collected over the 7 days and be stored in envelopes in the Gallery. Hopefully this new archive will provide source material for the next two exhibitions in the three part series.

After the 10th of August I will exhibit a series of images that deal with my responses to these ideas. This work will remain in the space until 18th August.

I want to extend on the use of the gallery, providing a writing space that is public yet at the same time a quiet place and for the most part an empty space in which to sit and reflect. I am curious if this being, alone in the gallery space has any impact on the viewer and what gets written. It can be just a line or two, a paragraph, a page, recounting a personal experience, a reflection, or an opinion. I like this idea of ‘a sense of place’ as argued by Doreen Massey being

‘a point of intersection in a wider network of relations’ what takes place at these ‘‘crossings” these borders these places of arrivals and departures are interesting, as you are required then to negotiate the various tensions and constructions implicit in one’s own biography. 2.

The PKW space will operate as one such ‘intersection’ for the period of the 7 days.

Colin G. Reaney
August 2007

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1. Furani, Khaled. 2008, In Defence of Metaphor.
2. Massey, D. 1991, ‘A place Called Home,’ New Formations 17,1991:29, as cited in Morley, David. 1999, “bounded realms,” in Naficy, Hamid. [Ed] 1999, Home, Exile, Homeland, Ruthledge Press.