Unfinished Movement
Generator Projects, 26 Mid Wynd, Dundee DD1 4JG
18th March – 1st April 2022

A group exhibition, curated by Graham Lister and Julita Hanlon. It brought together a number of Dundee-based artists who shared concerns with fragmented movement, barriers and incompletely physical journeys in space.

Featuring new work by Graham Lister, Julita Hanlon and existing, selected work by Jek McAllister and McLaughlin + Williamson, Unfinished Movement was an exhibition which sought to draw into focus poignant challenges related to movement. The range of works which were showcased allowed for socio-political issues to be raised. Contemporary lockdowns, disputed international borders, freedom(s) of movement and more local personal struggles were each touched on within the exhibition.

The exhibition sought to draw into focus questions relating to unequal experiences of movement, of freedom and of the ability to apprehend space. A new large scale barrier work including sewn text, along with continuation of visual research into the painted fragment featured in the exhibition. The combination of expanded field works, alongside intensely detailed oil on board works allowed for new visual dialogues, about how artworks operate in/ govern spaces, to emerge.

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After seeing connections between research themes of movement in space, of impeding or blocking the traversing of sites, Hanlon and Lister worked together and selected and invited 3 Dundee-based practitioners to be part of the venture. These selections were based on concerns identified in terms of moving in/ through/ between/ out of spaces and places and navigating changing physical and social ideas of (social) distance and proximity.

By bringing together these different makers, new knowledge was developed in terms of how disparate visuals could connect and interconnect, how experiences of being present could be visually investigated and how an impact could be generated for viewers by way of viewing such works in new and interesting ways. Encountering a suite of works encompassing film, video, sculpture, photography and painting meant that viewers were positioned in such a way as to allow for an unstable, varied and challenging viewing experience. Moving from a tiny painted work, requiring proximity to come to the fore of their minds, to then encountering towering sculptural forms, meant that their experiences of moving through the Generator space were diverse and new narratives about their own positioning could be developed.