Simon Faithfull: Recent Findings

Recent Findings is the British premiere of Simon Faithfull's current work. Launching on 27 March 2010, the exhibition is curated by the Harris Museum & Art Gallery and presented as part of the Abandon Normal Devices (AND) Festival. AND is a new festival presented by folly, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) and Cornerhouse that welcomes audiences to experience the best in new cinema and digital culture.

Faithfull works predominantly in drawing, video and installation, often using different technologies to record his surroundings. The Harris is thrilled to be hosting the Recent Findings show as it will be the first time these pieces have been exhibited in the UK and includes the newly commissioned projection work, A Murder.

Faithfull commented, "The exciting thing about Recent Findings is that it brings together many new pieces that I have shown in Germany, France and New York but that haven't till now been exhibited in the UK."

Faithfull's work continually questions, measures and tests his own experience of the world.

These investigations result in fascinating artworks and include his newest piece, the film 0˚00 Navigation (commissioned by Landscape and Arts Network Services), an intriguing and obsessive journey exactly along the Greenwich Meridian from Peace Haven in Hampshire to Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire. A solitary figure is seen using a GPS device to follow the exact line of longitude, negotiating all obstacles encountered – climbing through windows, wading through streams and crawling through hedges.

Another insight into Faithfull's journeys includes the video-work Aurora Borealis (Unseen), in which a record of the artist's 2006 trip to the Arctic Circle is seen via the reflections captured in a human eye. The footage records the strange location and scientific equipment witnessed whilst Faithfull waited unsuccessfully to experience the Northern Lights.

Other highlights of the exhibition include the premiere of A Murder, in which the crow images Faithfull regularly sketches on his palm pilot are brought together and displayed as they've never been seen before. The crows inhabit the streets and open spaces from cities in the UK, Canada, Spain, and Germany. In each of these places Faithfull feels the society of crows mirrors the individual habits and manners of the people who also populate these cities. Collected together from many points of the globe these drawings will be projected on to the walls of the gallery, presenting an immersive installation and creating an unfeasible murder (flock) of alien creatures. The installation will also reference its setting with the inclusion of a Preston crow.

Simon Faithfull: Recent Findings