'Soul group' screening at FACT in Liverpool: thanks to all who helped me put my foot in the door of the Biennial

FACT Liverpool, image copyright Margaret Sharrow 2010

Well, the title just about sums it up: on 26 November the sliding doors at FACT opened, thanks to curator Heather Corcoran, I slid in, set up my screening at the cafe, and spent an enjoyable evening showing my video 'Soul group' to the public, and chatting with many of you. Thanks to everyone who took the time to stop by (special thanks and astonishment go to the man and his wife who spotted me absorbed in my mocha and oversized chocolate chip cookie at the Brighton Museum on 4 December, recognised me, and came over to say hello again). Special thanks also to the member of the FACT team in the upstairs offices who offered me tea while I waited to 'go on', and to Tariq and Dave who looked after me so well downstairs (more tea!), and were so welcoming. And a big thanks to Heather for being so welcoming, discussing my work, her work, and the vagaries of being transplanted across the pond, however long ago.

If you missed it, don't worry, I'll be having lots of other screenings of 'Soul group' and other work - as soon as I have firm dates and locations, I'll post them here, and on Facebook and Twitter.

Just a reminder that if you are in West Wales, 'Soul group' is currently screening at St Dogmaels Gallery near Cardigan, as part of the Winter Show.

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Magma by Marianna Mørkøre and Rannvá Káradóttir: abstract forms in the Faroes

Installation photographs from 'Magma' by Marianna Mørkøre and Rannvá Káradóttir, 2010. Still images copyright Marianna Mørkøre and Rannvá Káradóttir, photographs by Margaret Sharrow, 2010


Marianna Mørkøre and Rannvá Káradóttir
Magma
super 8 film transferred to DVPAL

3 min

There was one thing that, for me, made it worth going to the Liverpool Biennial 2010. The fact that it was from the Nordic Pavillion at CUC (the Contemporary Urban Centre, appropriately situated on Greenland Street), will come as no surprise to those familiar with my affinity for all things circumpolar. It was the short film 'Magma', by Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication fashion studies graduate Marianna Mørkøre and London Contemporary Dance School graduate Rannvá Káradóttir: two Faroese artists who came to study in London, and who are now collectively known as Rammatik. The Faroes are a little-visited series of islands, a part of the Kingdom of Denmark dropped between Norway, Shetland and Iceland, said to be the toenail clippings of a Nordic giant. They have the remoteness of Foula, or St Kilda, but more so. Some of the remoter islands in the group have only had their remotest villages connected by road and tunnel within living memory. Green, green, bright green billiard tables of islands with jagged peaks and plunging sea cliffs, uniformly chilly all year round. Bird sanctuaries and brilliant jewel-coloured Danish houses. The island of the birds, where one might have to hole up for a week before a brilliant hour's sun transforms everything beyond compare.

Into this surreal and all-dominating landscape and weather come a series of black-clad dancers in curious long black caps, with swimming-cap chinstraps, hovering somewhere between Breton lace and bullets. They chop their blackened palms before their faces. They walk in a line up the hill, and run down in a hasty group. They stand in a pair and cross and uncross, open and close arms in staccato gestures. One lies, eyes closed, on the blackened rock, a ring of twirling hands draws back from the centre. They stare at the viewer, blankly, knowingly, slyly.

The editing is as abrupt as the choreography and the contrast between the black figures and the jagged green mountain that peers through the mist. Short shots accentuated by the dissonant soundtrack by Jens L. Thomsen. Pieces of end-of-reel flash. A figure stands alone against the hill. The synthesizers dive slowly towards bass, sliding from one tone fluidly to the next as a man grabs the grass to the side in great arm gulps, pushes up, and crablike moves towards camera. A yellow spot remains immobile at the centre of the otherwise green and black screen. It may be apparent by now that I have longed to go to the Faroes for many years. This film was far more than imaginative transport, however. It seemed not to posit an impossible relationship between the people and the landscape; instead the black-clad figures became high-speed embodiments of the geological ultraslow dance of the land itself, the magma.

Marianna Mørkøre's website

Magma trailer

Rammatik blog with more about the cycle of films, of which 'Magma' is the first

a-n review of Magma by Ruth Denton

NICE Nordic Inter-Cultural Events

CUC (Contemporary Urban Centre), Liverpool

link to Liverpool Biennial 2010 website

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Margaret Sharrow: Albert Dock intervention, Liverpool

EMERGENCY WORDS intervention, Albert Dock, Liverpool, 26 November 2010. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2010

What happens when an object that is apparently perfectly in context (a life ring at a harbour) is taken out of context (walked around the harbour as if it was an oversized handbag)?

Not a performance as such, but an intervention. Walking by the National Maritime Museum. No public interaction requested, though plenty of people noticed, commented, wondered. Assumptions of purloining. A stunt? Official business? Improbably dressed harbour staff? A souvenir of Liverpool? Crime in progress? When standing still checking camera batteries, I was even mistaken for a museum wax model. Upon moving, startled teenagers concluded that perhaps I was a costumed museum interpreter/performer. 

As I explained to the apologetic and very polite dock security man, the life ring was provided by me on loan from the Harbourmaster at Aberaeron, i.e. NOT NICKED from the docks! 

Margaret Sharrow screens 'Soul group' at FACT Liverpool 26 October 2010

Image: still from 'Soul group', copyright Margaret Sharrow 2010.

Margaret Sharrow will be screening her video 'Soul group' on Friday 26 November at FACT Liverpool as part of the Liverpool Biennial.

The screening will take place in the FACT cafe, from 5-9 pm. The video, which lasts just under ten minutes, will be played continuously on a small screen at one of the tables.

The artist will be present to answer questions about the work.

For more information, contact the artist on this website.

EMERGENCY WORDS: Margaret Sharrow performs at Lampeter, Manchester, Liverpool Biennial

Image: Life ring, Pembrokeshire. Copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2010.

What words would you want to save you in an emergency? That's the question Lampeter artist Margaret Sharrow will be asking members of the public in her new performance piece, 'EMERGENCY WORDS'.

The event will premiere in Lampeter at the Poets and Peasants Society, Thursday 9 September at 8:30 pm in the Castle Green, Bryn Road.

Sharrow will offer audience members cards on which to write their chosen life-saving words. The cards will then be attached to a life ring, kindly on loan from the Aberaeron Harbourmaster's office. Later in the evening Sharrow will read aloud the collection of words.

'It's a chance for people to reflect on what gives them comfort or redemption, and on what constitutes an emergency,' says Sharrow. 'And also, what might be important or sustaining for other people. By having only a small card to express themselves, people will become part of a kind of live Twitter event - except all contributions will be anonymous.'

Sharrow, a graduate of Aberystwyth University's School of Art and winner of a Geoffrey Crawshay Memorial Travel Scholarship for travel to Greenland in 2008, has previously performed at Lampeter's Poets and Peasants group. In June she performed 'Shrouded Artist', following on from her mixed media exhibition 'Shrouded Forms' at Lampeter's Town Hall Café-Deli in April this year.

'EMERGENCY WORDS' will travel to Manchester's greenroom, 54-56 Whitworth Street West, on Friday 1 October from 5:00 to 9:00 pm, as part of an 'Emergency' themed weekend of performance art co-produced with the arts organisation hÅb. In November Sharrow plans to perform the piece at the Liverpool Biennial. Times and venues will be confirmed on her website, margaretsharrow.blogspot.com.