I recently visited Nottingham to see a separate show by Honey Williams in the evening, whilst there we were lucky enough to go to Nottingham Contemporary to see the Silver City Show that had taken over the gallery. ‘Our Silver City travels to the end of this century, featuring works from the last 400 million years. It is an exhibition-as-sci-fi-novel, or vice-versa.’ Promotional Info
I initially did not read any of the exhibitions flavour text or written content, this was so I could go in blank using my senses and observation skills to try and pick apart a meaning, context or communication. This was a very enjoyable experience and the contexts of time, innovation and a new city/reality were clear, especially when experiencing the weather and temple areas. Both these areas had a sort of kit-bash feeling in their construction or approach, containing a mixture of recognisable and newly imagined forms.
The sense of the work I got before knowing anything about it was of community and connection but also of a makeshift/edited reality, familiar in some aspects, visionary in others. I found myself immersed in this environment particularly the ‘Time to Understand’ area, the arrangement of the high quality fabrics and low lighting gave it a museum feel but one filled with new archaeology not old, this was enhanced by the audio visual elements, the levitating sculpture and very futuristic display/layout.
The show is a journey across the Silver City, formerly known as Nottingham. In this city the people have embraced new ways of communication, production and understanding the world, which is expressed through the galleries four spaces as directions, North, South, East and West. Each space had its own contextual arena to tackle separately, however the collective narrative of the Silver City unified the whole show into a coherent story and an intriguing sci-fi vision of the future.
I enjoyed my experience and it really excited me to see narrative based installations that were closely linked to sci-fi and the contemporary art world. I also enjoyed seeing community based ideas and practices being approached, this helped me develop new ways of displaying my own work and encouraged me to pursue more ambitious ways of expressing ideas through installation.
It was also really good to see a varied exhibition that was diverse but curated in a way that unified all of the areas of the imagined Silver City. By this I mean each space felt like its own exhibition but whilst together they also felt cohesive. This kind of unity and modularity, where the component parts are equally as important as the overall display/effect, was done successfully through use of atmosphere and audio visual elements. Each space had a sort of low hum of sound or ambience noise, even in the quieter rooms you could still hear the soft beat of the other areas.
This has informed my practice in terms of lighting and audio elements as well as curation of visitor experience, I am realising now that engaging with interactive performative installations requires a lot of wide consideration. I also realise now that expecting to be able to resolve a topic as broad as sound or interaction or waste (or any topic) by May is not realistic.
I should instead aim to explore it experiment with different approaches, whilst seeking to try and retain the core elements that interest me such as sound, object, community engagement, reassessing our environment and immersive experience.
https://www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/whats-on/our-silver-city-2094/