Rickards, Hannah
Hannah Rickards’ work deals with how to translate an encounter, be that with a sound, an object, a space or an image. Key to her practice is the relationship between the temporary and permanent elements in a landscape, with the sites concerned being used as both a vantage point and a stage for examining our verbal, spatial and gestural relationship with our surroundings.
One can make out the surface only by placing any dark-coloured object on the ground, 2017 shows two performers interacting with photographic materials on a large stage. The images on the scattered papers are drawn from early scientific photographs, and depict celestial phenomena and geological surfaces. The work is decidedly non-narrative and never settles on a fixed perspective. Its title describes the difficulty of navigating whiteout conditions in a snowy landscape without visible horizon lines. By continuing to place objects in front of themselves as they move forward, the performers create a pattern, composed with musical structures in mind, to consider how a landscape might be read as a score.
One can make out the surface only by placing any dark-coloured object on the ground was commissioned and produced by the Curtis R Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre (EMPAC), Renesslaer Polytechnic Institute, with additional support from The Leverhulme Trust, Arts Council England Grants for the Arts and the Elephant Trust.
- Artwork Details: running time: 40 minutes 25seconds
- Edition: 1 of 3 + 2 AP
- Material description: Single-screen video, seven-channel sound
- Credit line: © the artist. Image courtesy of the artist
- Theme:
- Medium: Film and Audio Visual
- Accession number: ACC28/2019