Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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Rhona Byrne, ‘Learning to Fly over Swansea’, St.Mary's Church, 2007.
Photo: Ken Dickinson.
Various locations, Swansea
14 April – 13 May
Reviewed by: Simon Holly
After a hiatus of five years between projects, ‘Locws 3’ is the latest venture from Locws International, an artist led-initiative founded by Tim Davies and David Hastie in 1999, and joined on this occasion by Grace Davies. Conceived with the aim of exhibiting art outside of the gallery context in Swansea, each of the eleven artists involved were invited to produce work that responded to the city’s cultural make-up. Presented in sites across Swansea, ‘Locws 3’ actively encouraged the viewer to engage with the city itself, from the generic ‘water-living-quarter-development’ of SA1, to the Dylan Thomas Theatre.
As Swansea tries to remodel and redefine itself as a city in the millennium, it finds itself in a period of self-reflection similar to when it was badly damaged by bombs in World War II. Many of the more resonant pieces in ‘Locws 3’ drew parallels with ideas of development and identity intrinsic to Swansea, through this specific historical, social and architectural context. Rhona Byrne’s video Learning to fly over Swansea, installed in St Mary’s Church, documented the artist’s ascent into the sky, training the camera on her view as she negotiates the city from above. As she is flown overhead, her focus lingers on the church itself, a present symbol of rebirth, it having been extensively repaired after World War II. This topographical view not only seems to echo town-planning-simulation computer games like Sim City, but also the calculated gaze of a pilot on a bombing raid, a reference heightened by the absence of sound in the piece.
If Byrne chose to document Swansea as a place, Helen Sear focused on its inhabitants, exhibiting photographic portraits set in Swansea’s Plantasia. While the range of adults and teenagers were posed in a state of self-conscious reverie, every child portrayed challenged Sear’s gaze. It’s a stance that revealed an exciting sense of self-determination for Swansea’s evolution.
Notions of transcendence and the future permeated Sara Rees’ sculpture Kairos, a wooden shack made from materials found in the city and moored in Swansea’s marina, incongruously floating next to sleek yachts. These fragments and discarded remains collected together formed a shelter and haven from a seemingly imminent apocalypse.
Elsewhere Torsten Lauschmann’s Piecework Orchestra in the National Waterfront Museum created sporadic sounds and rhythms out of domestic appliances, similar to the music of Matmos and Autechre; it highlighted the monotony and uncertainty that surrounds South Wales industry. Two of Swansea’s cultural icons, Bonnie Tyler and James Harris Snr, were appropriated by Rebecca Gould and Niamh McCann respectively. Notions of war and peace are again unfurled in the vividly patterned flag raised on a neglected flagpole, in the Guildhall and Rotunda, by Neil Bromwich and Zoe Walker. The unassuming respect of Mileena Dopitova’s interventions in Swansea Museum and Jan Toomik’s films in the Guildhall spoke of frustration and loss.
In the broad context of these ideas it was Carwyn Evans’ A Grand View that seemed particularly emblematic of Swansea’s present state. Visible initially across the marina and set against a backdrop of the construction site of SA1 and the hills beyond, three large identical house facades constructed out of cross hatched timber sat on a disused plot of land. The facadés’ supporting scaffolding and those hills made me think of the Hollywood sign and how that represented a symbol of hope and innovation during the American Depression. Evans’ bold, ornamental, yet pallet-like design evoked Swansea’s former Victorian prosperity and industrial heritage, but with the temporary status of the facadés – much like the word ‘Land’ that initially accompanied ‘Hollywood’ – it remains to be seen how Swansea will evolve in their absence
Writer detail:
Simon Holly
Venue detail:
Locws International
Upper Hareslade Farm, Bishopston, Swansea SA3 3BU
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