EXHIBITION: Neither Here Nor There News from the School of Art, Architecture and Design

Open Field Artist in Residence Programme. Private View: 9 May, 5-8pm.

Date: 7 May 2019

The installation Neither Here Nor There is the outcome of Isha Bøhling’s Open Field residence at the Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University. The site-specific light and sound work is installed in the bridge, which functions as a walkway that links two main buildings.

The light installation creates a mutable sequence of colour alignments that are affected by natural light coming through the windows. Weather patterns bring different light from dawn to dusk. Up close the coloured light appears distorted, reflected and refracted, while a more distant, external view from the street presents a more settled and defined pattern. As darkness falls, the lights grow in intensity, their vibrant colours banishing the gloom.

A series of voices are heard, as if calling from one side to the other. The artist uses her voice through repetitive layering to culminate in a melodic song. The lyrics of the song play with the idea of not being in any one place at any given time, responding to the transitional nature of the space; the spectator’s position is always liminal, in-between locations.

Also on view is Bøhling’s installation Behind These Walls, the result of her Sonic arts residency in Music Technology at the same institution. Behind these Walls is a light and sound installation, presented in The Wash Houses’ stairwell. The artist’s voice is heard singing, inviting the viewer to walk up the stairs. A large lightbox projects light from the bottom of the lightwell while a skylight above allows natural daylight to penetrate down the shaft. Existing wall lamps placed at regular intervals up the stairwell are worked into the choreography and have the appearance of floating moons The lyrics of the song respond to the building’s former use as a wash house and the lost rivers bricked up underground.

The artist looks for meanings behind patterns in the systems that we create in an attempt to understand the bigger picture of our world and our universe. The songs allude to questions about time and space while blurring between fictional and real narratives.

Isha Bøhling is a British Danish artist based in London. She has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, including The London Open, Whitechapel Gallery, David Risley Gallery Copenhagen; Dilston Grove, London; Kunstraum Baden, Zurich; Pierogi gallery, New York; The Soap Factory, Minneapolis; The Recoleta Museum, Buenos Aires; Rua Sympatica, São Paulo. She was shortlsted for East London Painting Prize in 2014 and was in the Gwanju Bienale, South Korea. Isha graduated from an MA in Fine Arts at St Martins in 2002.

Light speak performance and upcoming art installations will take place at the Holloway Campus, London Metropolitan University on 6 and 7 June. Performance begins at 7pm. For more information contact ishabohling.com