Artists' News
Mandy El-Sayegh's site-specific installation part of the Biennale Matter of Art 2022
Until 23 October 2022
Prague, Czech Republic
Four Species, 2022, site-specific installation with original score, with Alice Walter and Lily Oakes
Mandy El-Sayegh’s painterly language draws on an unlawful diplomacy, mining the euphoric elements of excess and debris to create psychosocial collages. The artist’s process unfurls how systems of conversion and preservation work amidst the innate poverty in conditions and materials, which for El-Sayegh, are surfaces for building layers. Building here resembles the diligence of marking: a passage that deepens a wound, a map that blossoms into grids of pain. The immersive installation features an original score by composer Lily Oakes, foregrounding intimate dialogues and ambient sounds. In her video performance, Alice Walter similarly draws on a vulnerable voice to examine processes of psycho-regression. A medium and artist, Walter’s sculptural sets undergo a process of psychometric rituals to make space for rhythm and trance. A loop of endless hope, the visual and sonic palette of the VHS video produces a sense of intimacy at odds with its surrounding conditions of cruelty. Together, the artists in this installation unstitch the body and lay bare its bruised fantasies. Signalling a departure from the promise of recovery, they admit that, after all, there are no exit wounds.
Mandy El-Sayegh’s painterly language draws on an unlawful diplomacy, mining the euphoric elements of excess and debris to create psychosocial collages. The artist’s process unfurls how systems of conversion and preservation work amidst the innate poverty in conditions and materials, which for El-Sayegh, are surfaces for building layers. Building here resembles the diligence of marking: a passage that deepens a wound, a map that blossoms into grids of pain. The immersive installation features an original score by composer Lily Oakes, foregrounding intimate dialogues and ambient sounds. In her video performance, Alice Walter similarly draws on a vulnerable voice to examine processes of psycho-regression. A medium and artist, Walter’s sculptural sets undergo a process of psychometric rituals to make space for rhythm and trance. A loop of endless hope, the visual and sonic palette of the VHS video produces a sense of intimacy at odds with its surrounding conditions of cruelty. Together, the artists in this installation unstitch the body and lay bare its bruised fantasies. Signalling a departure from the promise of recovery, they admit that, after all, there are no exit wounds.
