The Space : Night Watch

New art installation at The Space

Following on from the French and English coastal art events, “Horizon” at Sangatte and “I can hear the sea speaking” at Dover, Studio 21 bis have installed an artwork at The Space in St. Leonards on Sea entitled Night Watch. HOT’s Joe Fearn hot-footed it down Kings Road to check it out.

Studio 21bis live and work in Paris. They work in the public space, which makes them ideal candidates for The Space, which used to be the old Postal Service sorting office at the bottom of the stairs across from Warrior Square Station.

The original art interventions by Studio 21 bis are deliberately temporal and explore the territories linked to public and institutional spaces. The structures are always fabricated from cardboard, as the artists consider this material echoes their environmental, cultural and existential questions.

The current installation was made by studio 21 bis artist, Laurent Lacotte with his assistant Pierre and is curated by Christine Gist. It represents a coastal lighthouse, topped by a rotating blue police light that will start flashing at nightfall, evoking the present-day flow of immigrants, particularly between France and England and the repressive measures taken against them.

In this way, the traditional role of the lighthouse – to bring boats safely into port by guiding them away from the danger of a shipwreck – is called into question and turned upside down. The lighthouse is transformed into a veritable observation tower, an instrument of surveillance and sanction.

Being made of cardboard, the work is deliberately ephemeral; the piece will undoubtedly change due to weather conditions, and is meant to disappear with the passage of time, thus urging an end to such practices.

Night Watch

Art intervention by Studio 21 bis

The Space

Kings Road, St. Leonards on Sea

East Sussex TN37 6DY.

Info: c.gist@btinternet.com

http://interface-2011.blogspot.com

www.21 bis.org

Also in: Arts News