Rhea Storr: The Image that Spits, the Eye that Accumulates
Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art
Saturday 16th July - Sunday 11th September 2022
‘The Image that Spits, the Eye that Accumulates’ is a 11 minute digital and Kodachrome Super 16mm film converted to HD by artist filmmaker Rhea Storr. Her work explores the representation of Black and mixed-race cultures drawing on her rural upbringing and British Bahamian heritage.
Set in Norfolk’s coastal village of Happisburgh the film navigates how a body, both two and three dimensional, acquires language. The human and photographic bodies must negotiate Norfolk’s eroding landscape. As notions of ‘I’ and ‘other’ disintegrate the images become unstable and unreliable alluding to the effects of coastal erosion on Happisburgh’s coastline and questioning ‘what place does a mixed-race body have in this landscape’.
The Kodachrome film – overlaid with grainy family holiday photos and mobile phone footage – was once hailed for its vibrant colours and archival properties however it is now unable to be commercially produced.
A free limited run risograph print expanding upon the narratives within the film is available within the exhibition ‘Island’ on display in NGCA Main Gallery between 21 May – 11 September.
This project is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Photos: Colin Davison