- Artists
Iniva presents Currents of Time – a solo exhibition of new work by the acclaimed artist Zineb Sedira.
Floating Coffins, a new video installation completed earlier in 2009, forms the centrepiece for the Currents of Time exhibition at Rivington Place. Filmed on the little-known coastline of Mauritania, where the world’s shipping is beached and broken up, Floating Coffins draws parallels with another of the region’s characteristics – the harbour city of Nouadhibou, which has become a point of departure for African migrants trying to reach Europe.
The film, seen on a complex arrangement of 14 screens with layered sound compiled by Mikhail Karikis, moves between figures removing scraps, birds preparing to migrate and the extraordinary landscape where desert, sea, and man’s occupation and struggle to survive, combine. Floating Coffins is a space where life, death, loss, escape, abandoned and shipwrecked journeys meet. ‘It’s both a toxic graveyard and a source for survival and hope‘ reflects Zineb Sedira.
Sedira came to wider attention through the British Art Show and her solo show Saphire at the Photographer’s Gallery in 2006, and she continues to explore her interest in displacement, mobility and the haunting beauty of abandoned landscapes.
Zineb Sedira draws on her own background, French and Algerian, and has become known for her lyrical and quietly compelling films. This exhibition also shows a number of new photographic and light box works made in conjunction with Floating Coffins.
Floating Coffins was commissioned by New Art Exchange, Nottingham with
support from Artsadmin.