Lindsay Seers
Nowhere Less Now
8 September–21 October 2012
Artangel at The Tin Tabernacle
12–16 Cambridge Avenue
Kilburn, London NW6 5BA
Hours: Wed & Thu 13.45–19
Fri, Sat, Sun 11.45–19
Free on Wednesdays.
Booking is essential on all days.
Conceived specially for an arresting 19th-century corrugated iron chapel in Kilburn, London, known locally as The Tin Tabernacle, Nowhere Less Now is an ambitious new installation by British artist Lindsay Seers.
From the unlikely connections between the chapel, the birth of her great-great uncle, George Edwards, the birth of Mina Bergson, artist and sister of French philosopher Henri Bergson, and her own birth exactly 100 years later to the day, Seers has created a journey across time. Entangling global histories with intimate stories, the work explores image-making mediums, seafaring and migration.
One event leads to another in a world where coincidence takes on the character of necessity. The unfurling narratives project forward as well as backwards, from the present to a future when dates have become irrelevant and photography redundant.
The discovery by Seers of a family photograph of great-great uncle Edwards, taken whilst serving with the British navy in Zanzibar, took her in his wake to the islands off Africa’s east coast. Many things came to the surface in this archipelago, considered to be the seat of witchcraft in East Africa; from a young English sailor drifting in the currents of Empire to a man from the future, to an inscription on a centuries old Baobab tree.
Combining video and voices, architecture and animation, Nowhere Less Now is symptomatic of Seers’ relentless search for truths that remain elusive as they slip through the lens.
The Tin Tabernacle is a Grade II listed building in Kilburn, London. Erected in the 1860s as a place of worship, for the last 70 years it has been home to the Willesden & St Marylebone Sea Cadets. It is one of the last surviving corrugated iron chapels in England.
Lindsay Seers studied at the Slade School of Art and Goldsmiths College in London during the 1990s. She has emerged as one of the most distinctive new figures in British art. Her installation Extramission 6 (Black Maria) was one of the highlights of Altermodern, the Tate Triennial in 2009. The same year, Seers exhibited It has to be this way at Matt’s Gallery in London. In 2010/11 Seers presented a sequel, It has to be this way², commissioned by SMK (National Gallery of Denmark) and Mead Gallery, Warwick and presented by Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.
