Sonia Boyce, Network, film still
From 13 September – 19 November 2011 artist Sonia Boyce will show a specially commissioned film, Network, at Peckham Space. The film explores how forms of social communication such as mobile phones and social networking sites like Facebook have become the most popular ways for young people to maintain their relationships with friends and family.
The artist worked with Southwark Council’s Visual And Performing Arts (VAPA) Young Women’s Group to chart the nature of these relationships and the languages that have formed around these technologies. The exhibition will comprise a series of films, choreographed in the gallery space as an installation: a set of dialogues featuring the young people in front of as well as behind the camera.
Sonia Boyce says: “I was particularly interested in the type of conversations that are generated and amongst groups of young people. I wanted to explore their inter-connected micro-communities, and that boundary between the public and the private that is bridged online and through personal mobile phones. It’s fascinating to me that young people’s communities can reach geographically and culturally distant areas through the use of new technology, and how this can challenge traditional notions of the concept of ‘community.”
Information from the Peckam Space website.
Sonia Boyce is a British Afro-Caribbean artist, living and working in London. Her early work addresses issues of race, ethnicity and contemporary urban experience expressed in large pastel drawings and photographic collages, questioning racial stereotypes in the media and in day-to-day life. Recent work combines photographs, collages, films, prints, drawings, installation and sound working collaboratively with audiences.
Boyce was Iniva’s artist in residence in 1998 has created a work for the Rivington Place portfolio.
Boyce has also contributed to several Iniva publications including Annotating Art’s Histories publication Exiles, Diasporas & Strangers edited by Kobena Mercer, Peep, and Annotations 2 (performance).
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- Sonia Boyce, Hard ground, soft ground and spitbite etching on Pescia Magnani paper, 2006, Publication March 2007, 30 x 20 inches, Image courtesy of Sonia Boyce, © Sonia Boyce
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- Exiles, Diasphoras and Strangers
Last year Sonia Boyce spoke in the series of talks organised in partnership with Film & Video Umbrella, Making the Cut. Here is a clip from the talk: