Wandering at Strange Hours
Ryan Powell
UK
Ryan Powell is a video artist and documentary filmmaker whose work explores the politics of space and the interplay between human action and the natural world.
Watch the excellent short film he made for this exhibition here
Artist site
Instagram: @ryan_p0well
Artist Statement
The lockdown has unmoored time from any kind of schedule creating a perpetual present which, given the backdrop of the pandemic, has provided plenty of time to feel anxious. But it has also given space for different kinds of drifting, both intellectual and physical. Time to read and pursue whims with energy and enthusiasm and drop them without feeling guilty about “wasted” time and time to wander without aim. With human life on standstill and shut away inside my attention while out walking shifted to what David Abram terms the more-than-human-world which, it was comforting to see, continued unabated. Even in the city more than humans are all around us, requiring only a slight perceptual re-shift, a tilt of the head, to bring it into focus.
Conversations with Ryan
We asked Ryan to share his inspiration with us while he was creating this piece. Here are some very enlightening writes and artists to look at:
- News from Nowhere by William Morris
- Writings by David Abram
- Most important visual influence for this piece – Jenni Olsen
Here is a selection of our input following up Ryan’s suggested names:
- Creating a utopian future: William Morris’s News from Nowhere
https://tinyurl.com/ybs6yyd4 - Jenni Olsen’s blog
https://mybutch.blogspot.com/ - David Abram, On Being Human in a More-Than-Human World
https://tinyurl.com/yadrxaqa
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