Active engagement – from walking around the space to carefully interacting with each piece – is the only way to unlock the full potential of the installation artwork. Today, we bring you a selection of shows united by a shared interest in participants’ experience and movement through space. Powder Mountain’s inaugural art programme invites visitors to ski and hike through a series of large-scale installations, sculptures and purpose-built spaces embedded into the snowy mountains. Felicity Hammond’s Variations is a touring show that prompts audiences to uncover more about the project by following it up the UK from Brighton to Edinburgh. POor Collective mimics the arc of the sun with flags that flutter above our heads.
POor Collective: Together We Rise | Battersea Power Station | Until 20 October
Inspired by the beautiful sunrises and sunsets over the iconic Grade II listed Battersea Power Station, POoR Collective shares a bright and bold installation that dances above our heads. Over 100 flags flutter down from the ceiling, taking visitors on a colourful journey. Turbine Hall A showcases the warm blues, pinks and oranges of the Sunrise Flags, and Turbine Hall B blends the hot pinks, orange and yellows of the Sunset Flags. Each includes a rotating sun motif that makes every piece unique. It’s an installation that shifts and transforms as shoppers move around the space. Founded in 2019, POoR Collective aims to uplift young people and bring fresh voices into the design world. Together We Rise will be accompanied by another community inspired public artwork from POoR Collective as part of this year’s London Design Festival.
For Hours, Days and Weeks at a Time | Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum | Until 5 October
Between 1969 and 1979, producer and sound recordist Irv Teibel (1938–2010) registered the acoustics of nature and meditative sounds with high-fidelity technology for the Syntonic Research Inc. label. He produced a series of eleven vinyl records called environments. These recordings form the basis of Martin Beck: For Hours, Days and Weeks at a Time. It’s a show that explores the methods and means through which environments are captured, compressed and represented. Martin Beck (b. 1963) does this with a series of drawings, sounds, videos and installations informed by research into environments. The 1970s audio was marketed as psychoacoustic experiences that could alter domestic and workspace atmospheres for listeners to transcend the monotony of bureaucratic activity. Beck dissects the series’ promotional material, analysing its claims of creating spaces where one supposedly feels more at ease and productive.
Marie Watt: Sky Dances Light | Blanton Museum of Art | Until 20 October
The Jingle Dress Dance is an important Native American pow-wow dance and regalia that began as a healing ritual during the 1918 flu pandemic. Seneca visual artist Marie Watt’s (b. 1967) explains that “one version of the story is that a member of the Ojibwe nation had a sick granddaughter. They had this dream in which they were instructed to attach tin jingles to a dress and have women dance around this sick child while wearing the dress. The idea was that the sound would be healing. It’s assumed the medicine worked, because the dance was shared with other communities.” Watt’s Sky Dances Light series reference this tradition. Tens of thousands of tin cones sewn on mesh netting make up abstract, cloud-like forms that rain from the ceiling. The installation at Blanton Museum of Art, Texas, welcomes visitors into a forest of jingle clouds and invites us to create bonds across human history, generations, and with each other.
Powder Mountain Art Programme | Opening 2024-2025
Jenny Holzer. James Turrell. Paul McCartney. These are some of the big names that will be part of The Powder Mountain ski resort’s new public art programme. Visitors to the landmark in Eden, Utah, will discover large-scale sculptures and land art throughout the skiable terrain of the mountain and beyond. Established in 1972, Powder Mountain is a 12,100-acre mountainous, multi-season property that has a long history of recreation – from hiking to skiing. The inaugural display includes Turrell’s walk-in light installation Ganzfeld Apani( 2011) — originally commissioned for and displayed at the 54th Venice Biennale — in a new trailside pavilion. In collaboration with the Holt/Smithson Foundation, a major 1980s Nancy Holt work will be installed whilst, elsewhere, Jenny Holzer’s new series of engravings cover the rocks.
Variations: Felicity Hammond | Touring the UK | Opens 24 October
Varitations ia a new project by British photographer Felicity Hammond (b. 1988). It’s an evolving installation that explores the relationship between geological mining and data, as well as image-making and machine learning. Staged across four UK venues, the pieces will be touring venues across Brighton, Derby, London and Edinburgh. The first iteration of this installation – unveiling at Photoworks Weekender – is V1: Content Aware, which reflects on the global structures that support the digital economy. V2: Rigged brings together extractive processes that exploit humans and the land whilst V3: Model Collapse considers how machine-produced data feeds back into its own system. Finally, V4: Repository highlights the role of data storage centres. Each will be photographically documented, and the resulting images used as a training set for the next exhibition. Like AI image-creation, the logic from past datasets will be reiterated.
Words: Diana Bestwish Tetteh
Image Credits:
- James Turrell, Ganzfield Apani (2011). Photo by Florian Holzh.
- Battersea Power Station, POoR Collective. Together at Battersea. London Design Festival.
- Martin Beck, Ferns, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
- Installation view of Marie Watt, “Sky Dances Light: Solo XII,” tin jingles, cotton twill tape, polyester mesh, steel, at Kavi Gupta Gallery, 2022 (photo: Kyle Flubacker, courtesy of the artist and KaviGupta)
- James Turrell, Ganzfield Apani (2011). Photo by Florian Holzh.
- © Felicity Hammond, V3 – Model collapse
