The Flickering Darkness (Revisited) by Juan delGado
at Lightbox Gallery at LCB Depot
Wed 11 – Fri 27 Nov
‘The Flickering Darkness (Revisited)’ is a film by Spanish artist Juan delGado exploring the journey that food produce takes from its arrival before dawn at the Corabastos market in Bogotà, Colombia to its consumption across the social spectrum.
The film explores the journey that food produce takes from its arrival before dawn at the Corabastos market in Bogotà, Colombia – the largest of its kind in Latin America – to its consumption across the social spectrum. In this work, delGado attempts to create sense out of the market’s chaos and order, while inviting wider reflections on society’s strata and how they interact. Three screens show details of the market in close ups and wide shots. Most of the images are identifiable but the editing and juxtaposition often bring out abstract and geometrical resonances.
The soundscape is evocative – a mix of industrial noise, vehicles of every sort, human voices. The scale of the operations and the hundreds of people at work create the sense of a huge machine, with the labouring humans at times seeming anonymous and indistinct.
In the middle of the night, long queues of lorries transporting food from all over the country line up to unload their produce at Corabastos. We see coteros and zorreros (porters who work with carts and those that carry their loads by hand) transporting the food from one corner of the market to the other.
The goods are classified and stocked up at interior market stalls. By 2am all this activity must cease, in time for the commerce that follows. Vendors set up their stalls and once again the market becomes a hive of trading activity.
The work then looks at the preparation and presentation of the produce as edible dishes. In this final section of the installation, delGado contrasts the humble consumption of simple foods at workers’ restaurants with the elaborate choreography of fine dining experiences.
The Flickering Darkness (Revisited) is a Phoenix offsite exhibition and has been commissioned through Unlimited, which offers talented disabled artists funds and support; it has received additional support from Spirit of 2012 to be exhibited in Leicester, using public funding by the National Lottery through the Arts Council England. (The work is audio described, descriptive subtitles).
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‘The Flickering Darkness (Revisited)‘ by Juan delGado at Lightbox Gallery at LCB Depot (Wed 11 – Fri 27 Nov 2015)
Full info here: http://www.phoenix.org.uk/event/the-flickering-darkness/
Artist Website: www.juandelgado.com