How Far So Near, exhibition, in New Orleans

A solo exhibition of new work with collaborator, Lee Deigaard (USA) at Carroll Gallery, New Orleans, 17 January - 23 February 2023, with accompanying public talk 19th January 2023.

In the exhibition “How Far So Near”, the collaborative duo of Bartram + Deigaard test the boundaries of collaboration and of doubling in their artistic research. Brought together by a shared brain mentality regarding animal studies and of being and not being, recognizing and refusing to affirm the non-human animal other, they work sympathetically and empathetically, although geographically apart.

This project expands their exploration of collaboration, of what it is to be effective in this interrogation, by taking the concept of the animal (human and non-human) and its shared habitats (land, water, air) into a dualistic practice beset by collaborative rules.

Through this, they have filmed over land and water from their locations (Bartram UK; Deigaard USA) synchronistically, facing each other at the same time. Birds fly past, and humans walk in front of the camera, have picnics, insects accept their daily business. They focus on the horizon as a common marker and line between states, air and water. As a place that can never be reached. They take the concept of the animal to be subtle, an implied provocation, a gentle influx through the physical forms that interact with the activity.