Baltic presents Land of Friends, an exhibition by Carolina Caycedo, the London born artist of Colombian heritage. Currently residing in LA this is her first survey exhibition in Europe. This exhibition is an overview of the past twenty years of her artistic expression. A running theme with her works of climate and social justice she has always engaged with the local community, especially those impacted by large scale growth and capitalism displacement.
The exhibition features many sculptural elements as well as several multimedia works and video installations. The Yuma River is one of Colombia's largest waterways, it was renamed by the Spanish as Magdalena and it became the building block on which many of Caycedo’s works are based upon. Rivers feature heavily across the artist's work and her ongoing project Be Damned highlights the damage done by extractivist projects that have an effect on local ecosystems. Large casting fishing nets are strung high in the ceiling of the exhibition and are a feature of many of the works as a link between us and the rivers. Engaging the audience as they wander through the fascinating installation.
ArtAV were asked to provide audio visual equipment and our expert installation services for two of the AV works, Patron Mono and Spaniards Namer Her Magdalena But Natives Call Her Yuma.
Patron Mono is a large scale synced three screen projection that filled the alcove space on Level 4. One of the technical challenges for this work was the scale and throw distances. Whilst Carolina wanted the walls to be filled with the moving image the space allowed required specialist ultra short throw lenses to ensure everything fitted, thus Epson 03s lens with a throw ratio of 0.7:1 were installed. The synced three screen work was ran from one of ArtAV’s Hypersync units providing a solid playback solution that the Baltic technical team have become familiar with and like the ease of use and playback control features. The other work that also used Blackmagic playback and a Hypersync was the two screen installation Spaniards Named Her Magdalena But Natives Call Her Yuma, on a slightly smaller scale the work was in a custom built room and the two screens spanned the rear wall with Genelec speakers providing the audio. The work was the first one of Caycedo’s to feature the traditional casting nets which now are such a focus of all of Caycedo’s work and can be seen in the Baltic hanging spectacularly spread out on the ceiling. Make sure to view them from the balcony space on Level 4 as well should you get the opportunity.
