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Special guests
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Darren Almond. If I Had You
event
site and dates
project description
Despite the apparent anonymity and detachment, the human subject is at the heart of Almond’s work. The artist expresses dramatic human experience through the opening of the symbolic and emotional potential of objects, places and situations. His intimate video installation, If I Had You, poignantly locates the theme of remembering in an overtly personal sphere by articulating the emotional longing and losses of his grandmother. We observe a close-up and slow-moving projection of ‘Nan’ on her first trip back to the Tower Ballroom since her husband’s death twenty years earlier. She watches a dancing couple. In a second projection we see their feet gliding across the floor. A gentle piano melody creates a contemplative atmosphere; the subtle soundtrack of sliding footsteps maps out the perimeter of the space in the viewer’s imagination. The circular movement of the sound creates the desire to move in this very same way and links the four screens together. If I Had You moves beyond an exercise in family history to communicate the general frailty of human experience. Almond engages the viewer on a visceral level to articulate a collective vulnerability.
Originally commissioned and produced by Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan
The project is supported by British Council
 A full-length article about the project will be in the catalogue of the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art which is
coming out on the 1st March.
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