Art shows offer fresh takes on marginalised lives

Compelling artworks by major artists, which detail lives lived on the margins, are being showcased in three University exhibitions.

The Talbot Rice Gallery shows include the first solo presentation in Scotland by Turner Prize-winning artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan, which explores the complex nature of national borders.

Also being shown is a new film, performance and sculptural installation by internationally acclaimed artist Jesse Jones, based on writings by medieval female Christian mystics.

A third presentation – by Edinburgh academic Hephzibah Israel – is a text-based reflection on the artist’s own experience of living ‘on the margins of multiple communities’.

The artist sitting in front of a screen showcasing his work.
Artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan with "45th Parallel"

Devastating outcomes

Abu Hamdan’s film installation 45th Parallel probes the ‘political grey areas' in international legislature that govern national borders, often with devastating outcomes.

45th Parallel was shot on location in the Haskell Free Library and Opera House in rural Vermont – a building that, uniquely, straddles the Canada-US border.

Danish Palestinian film director Mahdi Fleifel delivers Abu Hamdan’s powerful script, which focuses primarily on a tragic event that unfolded on the US-Mexico border in 2010.

Fleifel delivers his lines, from the stage on the venue’s Canadian side to empty theatre seats on the American side, as though addressing a court of law.

By revisiting the killing of unarmed 15-year-old Mexican national Sergio Hernández by a US Border Patrol agent, Fleifel offers a powerful meditation on the arbitrary – yet lethal – nature of borders.

The artist sitting next to her sculpture, looking up.
Artist Jesse Jones with \"The Tower\"

Towering achievement

Jesse Jones’ latest work, The Tower, is the second part of a trilogy created with Talbot Rice curator Tessa Giblin – the first having represented Ireland at the prestigious Venice Biennale 2017.

Jones summons the stories and visions of women whose imaginations were crushed by the heresy trials that swept Europe in the 12th century.

The Tower draws on the experiences of Mary Magdalene, the music of 11th century polymath Hildegarde of Bingen and the inspired writings of ill-fated medieval mystic Marguerite Porete.

Jones transforms the Talbot Rice’s white gallery into a cavernous, dark environment, combining film, performance, sculptures and stage scenery.

The artist’s bold vision is to reclaim the radical and mystical potential apparent in medieval women’s writing that was so cruelly crushed by oppression and persecution.

Artist in front of her textual work.
Artist Hepzibah Israel with \"The Nature of Difference \"

Textual works

The Nature of Difference is a series of 20 individual textual works, produced by Hephzibah Israel in collaboration with Fraser Muggeridge studio in London.

Israel’s script moves between Tamil – her native language – Hindi and English, poetically exploring the nature of translation and what it means to navigate borders.

The work is informed by Israel’s own life story, which has seen the artist – a senior lecturer in translation studies – speak multiple languages on a daily basis.

The artist’s early experiences of hybrid identities, of moving across visible and invisible borders, permeate the texts in the exhibition.

Through each piece, Israel – who is based in the in the University’s School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures – prompts the viewer to consider their own perceptions of borders.

And, perhaps most poignantly of all, the artist encourages viewers to reflect on a collective future that transcends boundaries.

 

45th Parallel, The Tower and The Nature of Difference run until 30 September. The Gallery Is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10am - 5pm.

Related links

Talbot Rice Gallery website

School of Literatures, Languages and Culture

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