Science Fiction Sufism At Modern Art Oxford

Shezad Dawood, Piercing Brightness, Production Still, 2011. The Arrival – Jiang and Shin (played by Chen Ko and Jennifer Lim) arrive in their spacecraft at Top O Slate in East Lancashire, North West England. Courtesy of UBIK Productions Ltd. (This image features ‘Halo’, an artwork by John Kennedy, commissioned by Mid Pennine Arts.)

 

 

Science Fiction Sufism At Modern Art Oxford

Shezad Dawood (b.1974, London) works in a variety of media. Recalling influences as diverse as cosmology, science fiction and Sufism, his works create multi-layered narratives that undermine conventional ways of seeing, re-imagining moments from multiple sites and histories.

For his exhibition “Piercing Brightness” at Modern Art Oxford, Dawood presents new film, painting and light sculpture. And its title, “Piercing Brightness”, evokes the paradox of illumination, which obscures as much as it reveals. Through these works and the connections between them, Dawood calls into question our attempts to reconcile the passing of time and the creation of identity in our own lives.

Trailer is a 15-minute, alternative edit from the artist’s eponymous feature-length film Piercing Brightness. Set and shot in Preston, Lancashire, Piercing Brightness uses science fiction as a prism through which to reflect on race, migration and identity. The film tells the story of Shin and Jiang, a young Chinese man and woman, sent to earth from another planet to retrieve the ‘Glorious 100’. But their mission raises a dilemma – having forgotten their original purpose, these ‘lost’ aliens have now become a part of human society. As the film unfolds, they begin to question whether they should return to their native planet or remain in their adopted home. In Trailer, Dawood furthers his experimental approach to film, using techniques of splicing and montage to create a constellation of images and sequences that form a fragmented, non-linear narrative. Presented in a purpose-built viewing space, Trailer explores the possibilities of film as an immersive experience.

New Dream Machine Project originally comprises a large-scale kinetic light sculpture and Super 16mm film that references Brion Gysin’s original Dream Machine – a work conceived to have an effect on the viewer similar to deep meditation or dream sleep. The film, presented in the exhibition, documents the launch of the New Dream Machine at an interactive music concert at the Cinémathèque in Tangiers in 2011 with British experimental guitarist Duke Garwood and the Master Musicians of Jajouka. By acknowledging Gysin’s original influences from Sufism and Moroccan culture, the project seeks to map a more global narrative of contemporary practices and ideas.

The exhibition also presents a selection of Dawood’s textile paintings and neon light sculpture, which further his investigations into form, meaning and context. Using juxtapositions where meaning and structures collide, they can be seen as systems for understanding the world and the way in which signs occur and translate between cultures. Menhirs II (2010), for example, refers to the name often given to early rock formations that influenced a number of modern artists. Its forms resemble early Neolithic carvings, which also look like planetary bodies observed through the Hubble Space Telescope.

The first monograph of Shezad Dawood’s multifarious practice, which includes texts by Mark Bartlett, Jean Fisher and Michael Stanley, Director, Modern Art Oxford, also accompanies the exhibition.

The “Piercing Brightness” exhibition is a collaboration between Modern Art Oxford, The Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Cornwall and KINOKINO Centre for Art and Film, Norway.

Shezad Dawood: Piercing Brightness is on view at Modern Art Oxford from 5 April – 10 June 2012