The Viewing Table and Uprooted paper hanging and plant installation by Lu Mason and Emilie Flower at Pica Studios, 2018. The exhibit was a collaborative window display created in response to the theme of hidden for the Art and Activism Exhibition.
This installation was inspired by the creative alternatives research. In contrast to celebrating the heroes of human rights, if draws attention to the collaborative and hidden worlds of the political risk takers, rebels and idealists amongst us. There is a long tradition of activists using the arts to make political statements that would otherwise be forbidden, and the more arbitrary the political environment, the more those with less power will need to tap the rich and allusive hidden forms of communication and understanding that are our roots.
The installation was displayed as part of the Art and Activism exhibition showing the work and words of international human rights activists and artists in York, 2018.
“Sometimes we forget to look closely at what lies beneath. We can be so easily bowled over by the show that we don’t notice what is hidden from view. ‘The Viewing Table’ and ‘Uprooted’, is about making visible the things that your roots give you; anchoring, history, culture and nourishment. If you have to leave your country you experience an uprooting and if you are uprooted you have to start that process again.”
Inspiration
The installation drew inspiration from Wolfgang Tillmans, The Weed, Odyssey’s pop classic, ‘Going Back To My Roots’ and Kei Miller’s poems in ‘The Cartographer Tries To Map His Way to Zion’.
“Now hacross Martin Boulevard;
ladies and gentleman,
below hus in this deep is yards and yards hot grief,
plenty plots of soak up dreams”
- Kei Miller, The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion
Weed 2014 © Wolfgang Tillmans