British artist and Somerset House Studios resident, Hannah Perry, presents a major body of new work in her first solo exhibition in the UK since 2015. GUSH presents a captivating and poignant exhibition featuring large-scale dynamic sculpture, sound and film, in a candid and personal exploration of mental and emotional health in our contemporary, hyper-networked society.
Olsen helped Hannah with some loan Tritex Exlar actuators to allow configuration of a new movement piece where sound and light are coordinated with 4 axis movement such that the sculptures are brought to life.
More and more world artists are embracing cutting edge engineering science & technology to help convey their messages, ideas and thoughts with mechanisms and movements brought to life by automation components and systems.
Central to the exhibition is an immersive film, created using a custom rigged 360° camera built by Perry, that surrounds viewers with the contorted, continuously shifting movement of bodies. The film is narrated with fragmented spoken word that ebbs and flows with the images, summoning the highs and lows of both every-day and life-changing events, including the impact trauma and grief can have on our physical and mental state.
In an intensely personal yet universal exploration of the experience of loss, the installation marks the first time Perry has chosen to address the tragedy of the recent suicide of her best friend and artistic collaborator, Pete Morrow. Morrow’s diaristic writing and verse provide the basis for her moving inquiry into romance, psychosis and our relationship to death, along with the words of young people from London South East College, Plumstead, who Perry met through a series of workshops at Somerset House.
A compelling, original instrumental score written in collaboration with a cross-disciplinary ensemble of contemporary musicians, including award-winning composers Mica Levi, Coby Sey and London Contemporary Orchestra, accompanies these words and visual images, mirroring their rhythms and repetitions.
https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/hannah-perry-gush
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