Coventry Biennial 2021: HYPER-POSSIBLE

Sarah Badr - Azimuth

Nature obeys rules from which patterns arise, denoting that something is organic in nature, and therefore real.

In a technologically advanced society, what is real and what is fiction are seamlessly blended together, so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins. This so called ‘Hyper-reality’ has connotations of a dystopian future, one in which we crave reality, but in the attempt to achieve it, we fabricate a false version and consume that as real instead. And in that, there might be beauty.

Azimuth is its own pure simulacrum: the real is no longer what it used to be. This work is installed in the medieval Undercroft, below the ground floor of the Herbert where the digital surfaces on screen resonate with the layers of history and geology in the surrounding space.

Grace Ndiritu - Black Beauty: For A Shamanic Cinema

In this newly commissioned film installation by Grace Ndiritu, fictional African fashion model Alexandra Cartier meets Argentine modernist writer Jorge Luis Borges in a visionary hallucination.

Through this artwork we discover what the famous writer, philosopher and poet might have to say about the impacts of the contemporary ecological crisis and the problems raised by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The artwork also questions the environmental sustainability of global travel and the fashion, film and advertising industries, as well as, by extension, the international art biennial circuit.

Duncan Whitley - Phoenix City 2021

Phoenix City 2021 (Reprise) is an adaptation of Phoenix City 2021, reconfigured from the 24-minute gallery work.

Phoenix City 2021 is a sound and moving image work, combining speculative fiction and observational documentary to examine Coventry during its time as UK City of Culture 2021.

The work takes as its starting point Coventry’s relationship to the image of the phoenix. This stems from Donald Gibson and Basil Spence’s use of the mythical bird as a symbol to represent their respective town-planning and cathedral proposals for Coventry realised in the 1950s and 1960s. The contemporary appropriation of this metaphor for a city reborn from the ashes continues today as the city seeks to reposition itself as a cultural destination.

Architectural models, experimental time-lapse images, and archival footage of the iconic ‘90s dance club The Eclipse collide in an experimental audiovisual form. Various elements of the work have been co-created with other artists, creatives and community groups including Belgrade based composer and electronic musician Abul Mogard, the Jaguar Land Rover Brass Band and Leamington Spa Bach Choir.

This year, Coventry Biennial have commissioned Faye Claridge to co-create a project working remotely with people in prisons in the UK and US. ‘We Bear’ asks participants to create new artworks inspired by themes around the Warwickshire symbol of the chained bear. She paired two folk art paintings from the two countries, showing different treatments of captive bears. These, as metaphors, provided inspiration for participants to explore personal experiences of incarceration throughout the global pandemic.

This painting of Bear Baiting is one of two pictures of chained bears which inspired artist Faye Claridge. Using this work and one from the American Museum of Folk Art in New York and thinking about the chained bear as a symbol of Warwickshire, Faye worked with prisoners in the UK and US to explore issues of incarceration and imprisonment.

As metaphors, these provided inspiration for participants to explore personal experiences of incarceration.

Faye Claridge is an interdisciplinary artist and parish councillor based in rural Warwickshire. She produces contemporary art works in response to historic archives and traditions, believing our current and future identities are shaped by ideas about the past.