Exhibition by Adam Sébire
80:20 artist agency
new concept : new space : new work
Adam Sébire, anthropoScene II : Tideline 2018. Video HD single-channel, stereo audio. Music by Martin Franke
anthropoScene II : Tideline by Adam Sébire
Open: 9 December to 25 February 2024
Open Hours: 12-4pm, Saturday and Sunday
Opening Reception: Saturday 9 December, 2-5pm
80:20 artist agency - 377 Parramatta Rd Leichhardt, Sydney Australia
Adam Sébire is an Australian artist, filmmaker and photographer living in Arctic Norway; he studied documentary filmmaking at the national schools of Australia and Cuba. Adam’s video art responds to the perceptual challenges of the climate crises with the use of slow, reverse and stop motion - it draws on the elevated vantage point of artists like Hieronymus Bosch, with aerial views to detach viewers from everyday perspective, and in so doing suggests an overview of the fate of humanity from an angle that beckons a moral choice. His emphasis is on environmental themes, but with an arts focus, specialising in creative approaches. His works have been shown from Paris, Montreal and Sydney Film Festivals to global television broadcasts on Al Jazeera and others; from the Deutsches Museum Munich to the United Nations New York.
anthropoScene II : Tideline 2018
The tide mark on an island's black-sand beach rises ever higher.
Duration: 2'30" / HD single-channel, stereo audio.
🏆 Winner, Critics’ Prize: Den 75. Nordnorske kunstutstilling (75th Northern Norway Art Prize).
“In this awarded work of the North Norwegian Art Exhibition's Critics Award, 2021, there is a confusion about time. The confusion applies to both the material represented and the technique used. Although water is a volatile and liquid material, the water in this work appears as powerful rock chains, and heavy, dense formations, with a large physical presence. These waves are filmed from above, against a black sandy beach, and in the short video work the movements of the waves are played backwards, in slow motion. Thus, the water's foaming mountain ranges seem to collapse and fall backwards in time, as the video progresses.
This is how the extent of time appears to be unsynchronised, dislocated, and the work provides an opportunity to reflect on a central conflict in the era of the climate crisis: Between humans' short lives and intensive consumption of resources, and nature's slow, inexorable and eternal process. The work is accompanied by a soundtrack from an instrument made of recycled materials, and although the tone is mournful, reuse and this circular economy point the way out of the climate crisis' most powerful and frightening consequences. Back in the video, the waves have washed out the beach and an area of calm water can be seen, but the line between sea and land is creeping ever higher.
The winner of the North Norwegian Art Exhibition's Critics Award, 2021, is Adam Sébire with the work Tideline (2018).”
Filmed with a drone off remote eastern Iceland, reverse motion creates an eerie sense of prolepsis; a prevision of inexorably rising sea levels.
Made during a residency with SÍM Gallery in Reykjavík, Iceland.
Video © 2018 Adam Sébire (AU) www.adamsebire.info
Music © 2018 Martin Franke (DE/NL) www.hethoutenhuis.org
80:20 artist agency acknowledges the Gadigal, Wangal, Dharug (Eora) peoples as the Traditional Custodians and knowledge-holders of the unceded lands on which we live, learn and work. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first artists and storytellers on this continent, and pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.
COPYRIGHT: Artwork reproduction rights remain with the artist and 80:20 artist agency. This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of 80:20 artist agency.
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