ICA

Around the World in Eighty Days

24 May - 16 Jul 2006

Around the World in Eighty Days

24 May - 16 Jul 2006.

Presented simultaneously across two institutions, the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the South London Gallery, Around the World in Eighty Days is a unique exhibition that takes Jules Verne’s popular novel as its starting point and framework to explore the cultural diversity of artists living and working in London today and highlight the internationalism of the UK art scene.

This exhibition will bring together new works by some twenty London-based artists from a broad sweep of countries across the five continents. Around the World in Eighty Days will consider art, history and the social construction of places, spaces and identities from both a global and local perspective.

Published in 1872, the novel Around the World in Eighty Days marked a divisive historical moment that is still being played out. Many of the issues that it touched upon – rapid technological change, the emergence of non-commercial international travel and tourism, the height of the colonial era and the beginning of cultural and economic globalisation - continue to have resonance with the way that we approach and experience the world today.

Departing from the original narrative of Verne’s book, which outlines a restricted colonial interpretation of the world defined by the trading routes of Victorian England, this exhibition looks to an expanded list of countries that today construct and condition our global perspective. This exhibition will focus specifically on artists who were born abroad but now live and work in London, including artists who have lived in London for many years but also those who have newly arrived. Participants include among others: Jananne Al-Ani, Marc Camille Chamowicz, Alexandre da Cunha, Godfried Donkor, Ivan Grubenov, Mona Hatoum, Runa Islam, Janice Kerbel, Oswaldo Maciá, Rosalind Nashashibi, Uriel Orlow, Zineb Sedira, João Penalva, Hiraki Sawa, Raqib Shaw, Yinka Shonibare, Erika Tan and Francis Upritchard.

Around the World in Eighty Days uses both a narrative and historical framework to inspire and inform the artworks displayed. The participating artists will either exhibit a piece that has been conceived especially for the exhibition or display an existing work that resonates with the themes raised by Verne’s novel. The exhibition will loosely follow the narrative of the book along an eighty-day time line, which will guide visitors from the beginning of the exhibition at the ICA through to its conclusion at the SLG.

Around the World in Eighty Days has been conceived as an exhibition that plays on the geographical relationship between the two venues. With the ICA in central London and SLG in the south of the city, the exhibition also explores how geographical position can define and influence both artistic programming and its reception.

A publication will accompany the exhibition.

Upper and Lower Galleries, Concourse
Free with Day Membership

A programme of screenings, lectures and discussions will be present along the exhibition.

Education
Exhibition Expedition - A two-day workshop around the themes of the exhibition.
Around the World in 0.8 of a Second - Workshop with Damon Taylor.

Film
Platform - Jia Zhange's second film, about young performers living after the Cultural Revolution.
Unknown Pleasures - Another masterpiece from Zhange.
Demonlover - Olivier Assayas directs this sleek, heady thriller.
Darwin's Nightmare - A sobering documentary on the plight of the fishermen of Lake Victoria.

Talks
Shattered Identities:
A.B. Yehoshua on Israeli Identity
Slavery and the Reparations Debate
The Road to Kandahar
Violent Architectures: New Wars and Arab Cities

Around the World:
India
Cyprus/Turkey
Ireland

Performance
Panico plus San Serac (Output Recordings)
Rhythms of Latin America

Clubs
Around the World in 80 Tracks

Around the World in Eighty Days is an initiative of ICA Exhibitions jointly curated and organized by the ICA and the SLG.

South London Gallery, 65 Peckham Road, London SE5 8UH Open
Tues – Sun, 12 - 6pm Closed Mondays
T. 020 7703 9799
www.southlondongallery.org

www.ica.org.uk

© Yinka Shonibare
“Man on Unicycle”, 2005
Courtesy the artist, James Cohan Gallery, New York and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
 

Tags: Jananne Al-Ani, Alexandre da Cunha, Mona Hatoum, Runa Islam, Janice Kerbel, Oswaldo Macià, Rosalind Nashashibi, Uriel Orlow, João Penalva, Hiraki Sawa, Zineb Sedira, Raqib Shaw, Yinka Shonibare, Al Taylor, Francis Upritchard