art august in london - part 2

A Net of Eels
09.07-23.08.2009 at the Wapping Project, London
29.08-04.10.2009 at the Babylon Gallery, Cambridgeshire
 
the wapping project by you.
outdoor seating in the evening
 

the wapping project by you.
the restaurant part - atmosphere in the evening seems to be quite romantic-ish

The Wapping Project is a gallery in the former Wapping Hydraulic Power Station. There's also a restaurant in the same venue. Since I haven't been to this building before, it is a double reward to me on this visit.

a net of eels by you.
rubber stamp - a very japanese set-up, you could see these in every train station and some tourist attractions in japan

a net of eels by you.

a net of eels by you.

With their personal backgrounds, what you see in this exhibition could be quite a diverse range of multimedia exhibits, from drawings, photographs, collectibles to audio recordings. The aim is probably to create a terrain of objects related to the culture of eels, mainly from the japanese population, for the visitors to explore and experience. Whether it was meant to encourage the visitors to engage in a self-reflection of culture-consumption or simply an appreciation of the dedication to a delicacy, it is up to the audience to decide.


a net of eels by you.

a net of eels by you.
a selection of art work related to the eels are presented

When one walk under the speakers of various fish markets from Tokyo to London, the bustling sound of people in transactions give an eerie feel to the deserted power station the exhibition is taking place. It is almost taking a volume of what's used to be white noise in the city and broadcasting it in a vacuum - anybody inside would be forced to listen to all the conversation and sound delivering out from the speaker. It's easy to say that by stepping back one could have a clearer view on things, but to a certain extent this is becoming increasingly difficult to do with information filling up the ambience every second nowadays - giant TVs in the city, speaking billboards in metro platforms, mobile boardband, twitter, facebook, etc. Everyone is trying to grab attention from everybody else. In the end, would all these white noise be productive to us? How could we tackle the dynamics and make good use of it? That remains a question to be resolved.

In the mean time, perhaps we could take inspriations first by observing how the eels navigate in water :)

Full photo set here
 
Further Reading -

Official page for the show at Jake Tilson's website
Happy Victim - Kyoichi Tsuzuki's last UK exhibition in the Photographers' Gallery in 2003 prior to the Wapping Project show
Official web for the Wapping Project
Official web for the Babylon Gallery
Official web of Film & Video Umbrella, the commissioner of this exhibition
Wikipedia's page on Wapping Hydraulic Power Station