Going, Gone

A video presentation of Webb-Ellis’ For The First Baby Born in Space and Richard Whitby’s The Lost Ones, initially displayed in London’s Jerwood Space last spring, will take place at SALT Galata. Commissioned jointly by Jerwood Arts and Film and Video Umbrella, the works would supposedly mark the UK’s exit from the EU, commonly known as Brexit. However, during the first public exhibit, Brexit was delayed once again, pushing the country into further crisis. Departing from the withdrawal decision and the continuous heated debate surrounding it, both of the videos reference mounting civil anxieties and uncertainties embedded in the recent past and extending into the immediate future. Through experimental narratives of the politics and its aligned bureaucracies, they emphasize generations confronted by new waves of social and ecological insecurities.

Artist duo Webb-Ellis have regularly involved young people in their projects, and their two-screen channel installation For The First Baby Born in Space (2019) is no exception. Filmed during the extraordinary long, hot summer of 2018, and featuring a number of teenagers from the artists’ home base of North Yorkshire and elsewhere, the video gives voice to the youth who have had little say in the tumultuous political events that have unfolded around them, or in the nature of the world they will inherit. Talking to them about their hopes and aspirations as well as fears, the work records how their coming of age coincides with a time when so much else is in flux. These young people are a bellwether of Britain at large in a way—their confusion is a mirror of the turmoil of a country that, like them, faces an uncertain future.

In Richard Whitby’s video The Lost Ones (2019), a motley queue of individuals are all seeking salvation. They are people in limbo whose personal circumstances or economic situations have been suddenly re-evaluated and their future status now seems conditional on a test that they need to pass. While equally indebted to the dystopias of Orwell and Kafka, with their intimations of everyday bureaucracy spiralling out of control, Whitby’s parable takes particular aim at the collateral effects of Brexit, and the narrowing horizons of a country where people’s right to remain is increasingly rebuffed, and where unwelcome “outsiders” are told to expect to face a so-called “hostile environment.” Combining caustic satire with eccentric, absurdist humor, the work is co-scripted by television writer Alistair Beaton.

Installed on floor -1 at SALT Galata, For The First Baby Born in Space and The Lost Ones will be screened consecutively on a loop during building hours.



Exhibited at Jerwood Space between April 3 and June 2, 2019, The Jerwood/FVU Awards 2019: Going, Gone is a collaboration between Jerwood Arts and Film and Video Umbrella.