Anatomical Study

Overview

Runa Islam counterpoints two lines of enquiry for Sharjah Biennial 11, utilising the exhibition space as a stage on which to culminate one series of works, and simultaneously to start another. Both works further her investigations and experiments into questions of ir/reproducibility, duplication, mass distribution, place and displacement.

In Anatomical Study I, Islam uses multiple exposure, a photographic technique that she recently employed in her works Meroë and Pièce Unique (both 2012), in which she examined aspects of the original in relation to their double or copy. In this new film, her subject matter takes a turn towards botany, engaging this field as a paradigm to explore the potential of reproduction. The film centres on the seeds of common and rare plants that have been collected by Sharjah’s native seed bank, in partnership with the Global Millennium Seed Bank in Wakehurst, UK. Half of all seeds collected in Sharjah have been deposited in this replica collection in Britain, which serves as a type of 'back-up copy', displaced and temporally suspended.

This film can be considered a companion piece to Anatomical Study II, the first work in a new series by Islam that continues her ongoing interest in the material properties of the film medium. Currently, 16- and 35-mm film is being phased out, with major suppliers discontinuing many of their film products. Islam’s latest artistic strategy is to recoup the by-product of this devolution – the pure silver found in film negatives. In a self-reflexive commentary that considers the artist’s own long-standing engagement with film, the machinery of this medium is turned in on itself in a subtle circular gesture: a 16-mm projector lens has been transformed into a solid and opaque artifact. Rather than seeing through the projector’s prosthetic eye, we are asked to view the object itself, cast in silver that is left to tarnish for the duration of the exhibition. This is not a nostalgic ode to film or a memento mori. Instead, as the title suggests, this mediated representation undertakes an anatomical study of the medium. Through a process of material alchemy, old techniques and materials yield new forms.


2013

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 11

Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation

Anatomical Study I, 2013

Colour film in 16 mm
7 minutes, 45 seconds
Light filter, and glass vitrine
Dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation

Anatomical Study II, 2013

Recycled silver from film processing
Diameter 7 x 5 cm
Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation