Now summer is upon us (?) this is a good opportunity to look back at the events at DJCAD’s Cooper Gallery between February and May.
The main programme was The Scale of Things an exhibition of three moving image works that consider relations between humans and non-humans forming an exploration through history, intimacy and spirituality.
Cooper Gallery was proud to present the Scottish premiere of Jarman Award 2022 winner Grace Ndiritu’s Becoming Plant (2022), alongside internationally celebrated Uzbek filmmaker Saodat Ismailova’s The Haunted (2017), and on its fiftieth anniversary, Scottish filmmaker Margaret Tait’s Aerial (1974).
The three moving image works were brought together by a desire to unsettle how we imagine and see ourselves as part of nature. Understanding the recurring need for intimacy, to feel a connection that is commeasurable with our ability to impact and control, the exhibition approached desire itself; the desire to plunge our bodies deep into the earth and transcend the bounded individualism of being ‘human.’
The exhibition was co-curated by Sophia Yadong Hao and Prof. Sarah Perks (MIMA, Teesside University), an internationally well-respected curator and film producer, formerly Artistic Director of Cornerhouse / HOME in Manchester.
A number of public events accompanied the exhibition including a performative workshop by Sarah Perks ‘The Deep Ecology Council’ which encouraged connection with the planets lifeforms.
Saoirse Amira Anis’s rebirth of a fraying body was an intimate performance composed of movement and spoken word and ritual; positioning fugitivity as an act of rebirth, Anis offered an incitement for urgent collective action towards liberation.
Lovebug a reading event by Daisy Lafarge explored infection, intimacy, species and metaphor.
Finally Grace Ndiritu gave a Performance Lecture as part of the CHEAD Annual Conference 2024.
The Scale of things received a 4 star review from the Scotsman.
The Gallery continued its ongoing project What I am Reading Now… which invites Black practitioners and practitioners of colour to share, with a preface, a selection of five readings that are shaping their current thinking, research and practice. New contributions are published monthly on Cooper Gallery’s A space in-between website.
To find out more about the Cooper Gallery and past and upcoming events visit its website.