Five Surfaces All White

Five Surfaces All White
Film and solo exhibition
Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
6 September — Sun 13 October 2019

Five Surfaces All White reference conversations with Schwindt’s grandfather in which he recalls the walls, floor and space outside his own care home. Schwindt’s research examined the architectural tropes of health institutions, and included interviews with people affected by illness or working within the field of public health. These interviews and conversations are not necessarily translated into words, rather Grace is interested in different ways of communicating with the body and sounds, and thinking about the construction of space.

The film aims to condemn existing modes of social relations and communications, playing with different ways of listening, speaking and exchanging through hums, gestures and movements, choreographed collectively with the actors. The work is paced slowly and intimately, focusing on three human characters, a horse and a bare set comprised of five white walls framed by a misty landscape. The actors come together slowly to duet and connect in quiet interactions, moving and pacing in fugue-like states. Their communication moves from spoken language and song, to body language, dance and gazes - making continual reference to the five walls, the institution, the window, and what is beyond.

The film was shot at Cove Park in Scotland in April 2019 and subsequently presented at the two co-commissioning galleries Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow and Rozenstraat – a rose is a rose is a rose in Amsterdam as part of solo exhibitions.

For the exhibition at Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, the five walls were present in the space as a set, drawing attention to the audience’s position in the room, the architecture and staging. The show also included a bronze work - ‘Tears’ - a solitary, suited male figure - the capitalist man, whose face is seen to melt from, merge with or prop up his body.

The exhibition was created in conversation with the Curator Ainslie Roddick.

cca-glasgow.com/programme/grace-schwindt-five-surfaces-all-white