The Shadow Places Network has supported several creative projects through the provision of modest bursaries to artists Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, Linda Tegg and Clifton Evers to engage with the concept of shadow places. A number of works have been produced or are in progress – so please return for further updates.
Artists Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro’s practice reflects a preoccupation with the dynamics of global mobility – the networks, standards and financial systems that enable and restrict the movement of people and goods in the modern era. These themes are prominent in their recent work, The Pilgrims, which debuted at Bankstown Arts Centre for Symbiosis the inaugural Bankstown Biennale (10 October – 21 November 2020). The Pilgrims is a finalist in the 66th Blake Prize to be exhibited at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in early 2021.
Situated in an aeroplane boneyard in Bangkok, Thailand, which has become a popular tourist destination, the film is eerily prescient. Filmed at the end of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic grounded so many of the world’s planes, The Pilgrims captures the sense of freedom young people have whilst travelling - incessantly recording their every experience and encounter to share with friends and family through social media. Looking at these images now, through COVID-eyes, we are sensitive to the massive shifts happening around us and the disconnections wrought by the sudden end of (relatively) cheap air travel. The Pilgrims marks the conclusion of a brief historical period when global air travel was more accessible to more people than ever before, enabling an easy mobility for people, goods and, indeed, viruses around the world. And whilst not everyone has been afforded the opportunities to connect (for family, for adventure, for study, for work, for freedom), made possible by air travel, we all must now come to terms with the disconnections associated with its rapid demise and reckon with the challenges of maintaining global connections beyond these carbon-intensive modes of travel.
Video - The Pilgrims (excerpt), 2020.
The work is a high definition single-channel video 8m:58s.
© Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
Cinematographer - Sukrit Srisathaporn and Cake Napatsorn
Editor - Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro
Post Production - Vera Hong & Craig Bender. Thomas Dicker
Sound Designer & Mix - Tim Mahony
Fixer: Kritanu Manokam
