Rebecca Birch at the Institute of Contemporary Arts for curating project Fig-2
2-8 Feb 2015
I walked out my front door today and was greeted by two holy missionaries. And even though I told them I was an atheist they were still trying to introduce me to God and gave me a ‘Is there a God?’ leaflet. Which was not unusual, as I’ve seen them multiple times here around new cross from my time at Goldsmiths. It reminded me of the saying that art is an alternative religion as I headed down to the ICA.
There were multiple shows happening simultaneously at the ICA galleries. Photographs by Viviane Sassen, which were slick photography work that tricked me into thinking they were paintings; Dor Guez’s archival project about the Middle East and a painting show of artist and musician Paul Simonon. I was figuring out which one I could write about as I walked up the oddly unfurnished stairs to the ICA project space for Fig-2.
A woman and a man sat on the floor; she was talking and going on about something and kept drawing on a piece of paper which was projected on the walls around. I thought I was interrupting something but she invited me to sit down and I realised it’s a performance.
‘Lichen Hunting on the West Coast’ is the piece and it involves Rebecca, her drawing skills, standing plaster pieces, projectors and the occasional playing of Feist’s 1234. It made me smile when she turned on the music player and created, by hand the memory of a lichen-covered stick casting a shadow on her car’s dashboard on her artist-collaboration trip to Scotland, which was visually a moving shadow on a drawing. I’m from Goldsmiths (So is Birch). I get this kind of stuff.
The piece seemingly erases the barrier between the artist and the viewer. I wasn’t very inquisitive during her story since I knew it’s a performance but she said the first few days there were people who interrupted her all the time, and the story was told slightly differently depending on the perspective of the viewer. I heard the story twice and they’re slightly different. The first she mentioned going to a wedding with little kids and the second she said about going on a cable car up a mountaintop but the main story ‘narrative’ stayed the same where she talked about her lichen-covered stick which have been with her for 4 years. ‘Yeah I love trees.’ She confirmed.
And it turned out the man she was talking to was Robin Klassnik OBE who runs Matt’s Gallery, as she revealed to me later on. The Art world name-dropping continues.
Photos from http://www.fig2.co.uk/