The Ties That Bind Us Are Stronger Than Ever

Mat Do

11 September – 17 September 2010
Exhibition Opening: Saturday 11 September 2010, 10-2pm

In the archeology of a location recognisable cultural references begin to occur. They permeate the fabric of towns and communities as artificial and natural radiation might silently and patiently enter into the environment. Apparent only when searched for but visible in the soil, in the rocks; comprising the landscapes of folklore and fiction. A decommissioned nuclear facility creates a barren, post-industrial wasteland, The Zone, a forbidden area on the outskirts of the city, an area hinting at alien occupation and supernatural events. A place that, once reached, has the ability to realise our personal desires. It is a landscape of movie posters, of sites of ancient history, all offering the same repeated encounters with iconic geometric shapes. The Valley of the Kings, Total Recall, Stalker, create for us a background of shapes and landscapes in our minds, upon which the occurrences of life can be situated, in their localities, so that the geology of Sellafield, of Egremont and Cumbria, the psyche of our rural idyll, the market cross and the confluence of everyday town life can blend into the Aether. Into elastic substances capable of permeating the space of both fact and fiction.