26 Jan 2009

Lindsay Seers at Matt's Gallery, London

In the years and months preceding 'It has to be this way', Lindsay Seers' first exhibition at Matt's Gallery, a catastrophic accident has caused a chain of events that take us on a journey through history where everything is connected.

In a recent visit to Stockholm, the artist photographed anything that was associated with her step-sister Christine and followed streams of associations and connections attempting to reconstruct a past in which characters move across history and slip from one person to another. Within the gallery, a viewing chamber forms part of a sculptural installation housing a double-screen video projection and two monitor works that use several characters to stage the differences between enlightenment and modern thought on art, philosophy and science.

Drawing on historical theories of vision, Seers creates highly personal narratives by interweaving concepts of science, philosophy and photographic theory into the work, in an ongoing investigation into how cinematic and photographic technologies shape us. These narratives are punctuated by incredible plot devices – stalkings, burglaries, shipwrecks – that mimic the rupture at the heart of image production, creating a dramatisation of selfhood in all its melancholy and failure. By re-casting photography as an act that actually creates experiences rather than records them, or as David Burrows describes it in 'Human Camera', by creating 'an indexical process that is transformative', the boundaries of photography in Seers' work are truly extended.

Lindsay Seers will also be participating in 'Altermodern', the fourth Tate Triennial curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, opening at Tate Britain in February 2009.

'It Has To Be This Way', a novella by M. Anthony Penwill, is free to visitors throughout the exhibition. Please contact the gallery for further information.