My Room Is Another Fishbowl
From Gillies Adamson Semple
We are delighted to present our immersive exhibition My Room Is Another Fishbowl, the title of which echoes the French conceptual artist Philippe Parreno. Within our exhibition, the "fishbowl" comes to embody not only the flexibility necessitated by living as a migrant in a foreign country but also the fragility of often temporary living situations and the constant possibility of relocation. Within the diaspora, does the notion of "home" as a metonym of a people's ideology, history, and nation still hold water? Through this exhibition, we aim to dismantle cultural barriers and foster connections among our audience, with the aspiration that our stories can resonate as collective experiences.
The expansive glass window of Westbourne Grove Church, expanding outwards from the exhibition space, recalls the voyeuristic experience of glancing through a stranger's world while on a walk. This exhibition seeks to harness them to similarly spark the imagination of the audience. The invited audience will find themselves alternately feeling like residents of the space, and at other times like they are occupying someone else's domain. 5 Artists will translate spatial realisations of their personal experiences of home, comprising photography, painting, installation, and mixed media, blurring the boundaries between the virtual and tangible. It endeavors to shed light on the experience of belonging to the contemporary diasporic, and the unfamiliarity of the city as perceived through their eyes.
