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Indepth Arts News:
"The Room and Collaborations: New Work from Virginia Hilyard and Varsha Nair"
2001-04-27 until 2001-05-19
24 HR Art - Northern Territory Centre for Contemporary Art
Darwin, NT,
AU
The Room and Collaborations represents new work from filmmaker Virginia Hilyard and visual artist Varsha Nair. Most of the work in this multi-media exhibition has been developed collaboratively by the two artists during a recent residency in Bangkok, whilst the installation The Room is Hilyard’s most recent solo work. This exhibition evolved from a past collaboration entitled your hand opens and closes and opens and closes. Initially screened as a video projection onto the surface of a lake, your hand opens and closes…, was projected and installed in various forms that have included mixing technology with everyday materials such as ghee, sleeping mats and coconut oil.
This cross-cultural collaboration comprises video projection and large scale, back-lit duratran images of x-rays and photographs that address the tensions that lurk beneath the skin and that are disguised in a culture driven by surface calm and beauty. Using imagery from Thai massage and kick-boxing, both physical and sensual activities, the artists convey notions of cultural openness and closure as well as exploring the co-existence of strength and vulnerability.
Hidden tensions become exposed through the subtle prodding of these two artists. Like archaeologists excavating a site, Hilyard and Nair reveal the layers that lie beneath the surface of things. (Naomi Urabe)
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