Directions: Forward

Sonya Dyer/ Eve-Lauryn LaFountain/ Marcy Saude

Directions: Forward presents moving image work that juxtaposes the mythic and the everyday to develop connections between the past and future. Invoking ritual and resistance, dance and document, historical forces and speculative fiction, the artists map out a terrain that challenges borders – both literal and figurative. Urban indigenous experiences and traces of light captured through photographic process transform the landscape into a celestial realm. Ancestors speak through rhythm across space and time. Histories of settler-colonialism in the built environment intersect with questions of narrative, migration, and community belonging.

This exhibition concludes the Directions project, an artist-led moving image series with a broadly decolonial perspective. Supported by the Mayflower 400 Culture Fund and Arts Council England.

Directions: Forward has been made possible with thanks to The Arts Institute at Plymouth University, MIRROR, Plymouth College of Art, Spike Island, Paul Ager, Ben Borthwick, Tilly Craig, Nick Halford, Molly Erin McCarthy, Allen Robinson, Phil Rushworth, Elaine Sinclair.

Sonya Dyer / Andromeda (2021)
Duration: 11:16 min

In Andromeda, a portal between worlds opens, creating a conduit between the Andromeda galaxy and Earth, transporting a chorus of drummers into the world of an unsuspecting protagonist.

Andromeda continues Hailing Frequencies Open, Dyer’s ongoing body of work intersecting the Greek myth and constellation of Andromeda, Star Trek actor Nichelle Nicols’ astronaut recruitment activism, and the complex genesis of HeLa cells, the first human materials sent into Space. Continuing the epic world building characteristic of the HFO project, speculative fiction, social justice and art history collide in the work, which includes performance, animation and morse code.

Commissioned by Art Night and Somerset House. Supported by the Adonyeva Foundation.