Out of Sight, Out of Mind
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.
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.
Shown during PARALLEL VIENNA in 2019 with
There Is An Elephant In This Room (2019) is formed by 5 textile panels that, when joined together to form a single larger panel, measures 2.40 x 4.5 m – the same measurements of an average sized male adult Asian Elephant. This work was based on the English language expression, “the elephant in the room”, which refers to a highly obvious problem that no one is willing to address. It was executed following the simple premise of hiding the outline of the animal in plain sight, in a room that has the exact same height as the average Asian Elephant – 2.40m. Different abstract patterns are seen on the back of each panel in order to mislead the viewer into overlooking the elephant. The Asian elephant has been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1986.
