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| Memento by Ed Pien. Image courtesy Storey Gallery on Flickr |
Memento, an exhibition by Taiwanese-born artist Ed Pien opens at the Storey Gallery this week (5th February).
Commissioned by the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester, Memento is a contribution to Lancaster’s Chinese New Year Festival. It’s a walk-through environment created from knotted ropes, paper-cut silhouettes, video projections, rotating mirrors, sand-bags, shadows, and sound. In the dim light, the visitor plunges into another world, navigating their way amidst the shadows beneath a rope net canopy, while projected images spin around the gallery walls.
Artist Ed Pien, who has has exhibited internationally and will talk about the exhibition at an event this week at the Gallery, was born in Taiwan and lives in Canada. The exhibition was developed from his research into the plight of illegal immigrants who take great risks in the hope of achieving a better life.
These people often have to live ‘ghost-like’, hidden from society, such as the Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay and the ‘Faujis’ from India living in the UK without identities, and the thousands of North Africans who try to cross the Mediterranean in small boats, some of whom perish on the way.
• Memento opens Tuesday-Saturday 11am-5pm; late night Thursdays 11am-8.30pm, from 5 February – 2 April 2011, the Storey Gallery, Storey Institute, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster LA1 1TH. Telephone 01524 844133. Web: www.storeygallery.org.uk
• Ed Pien will talk about his work at 7.30pm on Friday 4th February at the Gallery. Tickets: £3, booking recommended via bookings@storeygallery.org.uk or telephone 01524 844133