Out of Sight, Out of Mind
(2020)
Out of Sight, Out of Mind takes as its starting point places that remain difficult or virtually impossible to reach, whether through geographical isolation, political restriction, spiritual significance or the limits of human access. Known through coordinates, maps and images but rarely encountered directly, these locations occupy an ambiguous space between geographical fact and fiction, sustaining the fantasy of somewhere beyond the problems of the inhabited world.
The exhibition confronts this fantasy with the impossibility of complete escape. Point Nemo, the most remote location in the Pacific Ocean, for instance, contains traces of microplastic pollution despite its extreme isolation. Moving between references to distant sites and the physical conditions of the gallery itself, Out of Sight, Out of Mind considers remoteness as both a spatial condition and an escapist projection — and asks whether anywhere can remain truly outside the systems we might wish to leave behind.
Produced during the Arnis Art Residency in Arnis, Germany, Island Shoals responds to the particular geography of Germany’s smallest city, situated on a narrow peninsula extending into the Schlei inlet. Formerly an island, Arnis was connected to the mainland in the 18th century, leaving a landscape where the distinction between island and mainland remains geographically and historically present.
Drawing on nautical charts and navigation markers, the work takes the form of an abstracted shoal buoy — a device normally used to signal shallow waters, submerged obstacles and navigational hazards. Positioned on the isthmus that now connects Arnis to the mainland, the marker offers neither a clear warning nor a route towards safe water. Instead, Island Shoals uses this ambiguous geography to consider the island as both refuge and enclosure: a place defined as much by the possibility of retreat as by separation from what lies beyond it.
Location
Balcony, Lisbon
Dates
2020
Materials
Acrylic resin, pigments, mixed textiles, found wood, rubber-coated steel U-bolts, acrylic paint, industrial floor paint, rope and marble aggregate.
