Sutapa Biswas’ exhibition, LUMEN at Baltic was a curated collection of works that span Biswas’s career. Featuring a selection of film works, photographs and drawings with the underlying themes to all of Biswas’ work, that of loss, memory, motherhood and migration. In particular her work can focus on the ‘Empire’ and the oft neglected female voice of the colonialism experience.
The exhibition title shares its name with the main video work Lumen, Biswas’ most recent work. A semi-autobiographical feature that tells the story of her family’s journey from India to England through the eyes and words of her mother and grandmother. The haunting monologue and direct contact with audience intertwines with the painful history of the British Raj and the effect of moving to the very country of the oppressors. Set in its own alcove in the gallery space away from the other exhibits the voice carries across the space when the film is playing enticing the audience within.
Other featured video works included two screen works, Light Rain; a stunning visual piece of landscape from Beppu Japan, with the natural steam rising from the city casting a firm juxtaposition between nature and man, the rumbling of traffic leaning into the rumblings of volcanic activity as if the serene composition is about to explode at any moment. Birdsong was the other two screen installation, inspired by her son’s first sentence and the innocence of youth, the work features a horse in the living room as requested by the youngster.
An unusual aspect to the exhibition was the need to keep a large open space for health implications. The solution that the team at Baltic and ArtAV arranged was to have the three major films play at separate times and direct the audience to the next film thus keeping the audience flow moving. From a technical point of view this required the films to be synced and programmed to play using one of ArtAV’s Hypersync units. The 3 large scale films would play one after another, this setup included Birdsong, Light Rain and Lumen. Whilst Remembrance of Things Past and Magnesium Bird were played using a Brightsign system.
With the space being kept so open another technical issue to overcome was the audio from Lumen interfering with the other pieces that had audio. Directional JBL pendant speakers were used to focus the audio of the two smaller video installations on flat screens at the opposite end of the gallery space.
Overall the exhibition was a success and the programmed playing of the films in a sequence only added to the experience. A wonderful exhibition to reopen to.
Photos by Rob Harris © BALTIC