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Gimpel Fils: Christopher Stewart : Super Border - 27 Feb 2009 to 18 Apr 2009 Current Exhibition |
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Christopher Stewart : Super Border
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Christopher Stewart Super Border 27 February � 18 April private view: Thursday 26th February 2009, 6-8pm "The long poem of walking manipulates spatial organizations, no matter how panoptic they may be". Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 1984 In January 2008 Christopher Stewart walked from M�laga to C�diz following the route of the newly constructed surveillance stations that are a part of the Integrated External Vigilance System (SIVE). SIVE is a �vision machine� that operates along the southern coast of Andaluc�a. Its infra-red camera technologies, electronic monitoring stations and air and sea interceptor craft have been put in place on the grounds of safety and security, but there is little doubt that the prevention of illegal immigration was a key factor in its installation. Stewart�s photographs of the SIVE perimeter are highly eclectic: golf courses, wooded pathways and everyday scenes are contrasted with images of surveillance towers and security technology. But SIVE is also a dispersed collection of boats, aircraft and communications technologies so deeply embedded within the local infrastructure that they are difficult to discern. The indeterminate nature of these grey zones prompt a state of confusion and possibly paranoia: is that really just a hotel or something more sinister? In The Practice of Everyday Life Michel de Certeau proposes that walking could be a provocative act. He presents walking as a tactic for not simply escaping the dominant culture, but also for subverting it. By illustrating the range of locations and infrastructures that are positioned within the spaces of this surveillance system, Stewart�s series implicates us in its system of exclusion. But by participating in Stewart�s photographic walk we are also invited to consider how and why the normalisation of SIVE has occurred and to challenge it. Christopher Stewart graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1998. His work was most recently displayed in Something That I�ll Never Really See, Victoria & Albert Collections touring exhibition 2006-08 (venues included: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art Norwich 2007, Hatton Gallery Newcastle 2008, & The Herbert Museum and Art Gallery Coventry 2008); Contemporary Complexities, Martin Z. Marguilies Gift, Samuel P. Harn Museum, University of Florida, USA, 2006-07; Theatres of War, Krakow International Festival of Photography, Photomonth, Krakow, Poland, 2007. |
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