Amidst 1994-6

Version 1

This projection installation was made in three versions for three different contexts: London, Spain and Estonia. For each venue images of a woodland were projected within a closed architectural space: a  rotunda gallery in London Docklands; a medieval stone scriptorium in a converted monastery (version 2); a converted castle (version 3). The texture and materiality of the architectural surfaces and projected light images profile and delineate one another in a porous tactile relationship.

'Amidst is a work which offered the viewer an experience of more than filmic intensity, and one furthermore in which the viewer's participation became an important element, since by changing position one could introduce an elaborate play of shadows across the panorama…if we turn to that emblematic, that paradigmatic forest, what do we find? Why, that there is no healing dream of Arcadian purity, since this forest of regimented pine trees is as artificial a construct as any office block. The fruit of dubious tax-shelter legislation, it is not merely unnatural- in real life, an offence to the landscape and a good example of unbalanced, ecologically unsound monoculture,- it is also both unnecessary and unproductive.'

John Stathatos Portfolio no 19