Balancing Act
Summary
HD video installation with surround sound on the lived experience of a non-white subject in Europe. Music score by Oliver Barrett. Installed at Galerija Umjetnina, Museum of Fine Arts in Split, Croatia.
Supported by
Commissioned by Radar, Loughborough University in 2012
Also supported by CREAM stipend at University of Westminster during my PhD.
Description of project
Balancing Act is an installation originally commissioned by Radar, Loughborough University.
Across a split screen, a pair of female feet walk the coloured lines marked out on the floor of a sports hall, tracing the boundaries of the basketball or badminton courts. Shot from a low angle the viewer is never allowed to see any other part of the artist, dislocating her from the scene.
Taking inspiration from historical mapping and the origins of sports rules, I question what it means to be in between, to cross physical and mental borders. The accompanying music composed by Oliver Barrett echoes the national anthems from Sweden, Denmark, Sri Lanka and Britain. They hint at my own migratory history while the text reveals personal anecdotes blended with stories from others and internal negotiations of cultural hybridity.
Balancing Act is a disorientating experience, questioning the rigidity and arbitrariness of systems we take for granted, the maps and borders, how these may be negotiated and how we might fall between.
In 2019 Balancing Act was exhibited at Galerija Umjetnina, Museum of Fine Arts in Split, Croatia as part of a group show called Oscilacije/Oscillations curated by Meira Ahmemulic, Branko Franceschi, Sandra Sterle. A catalogue accompanied the show with a text by Jonathan Habib Engqvist.
Type of work
Split-screen HD video installation with surround sound for exhibition
Published in
Oscilacije/Oscillations exhibition at Galerija Umjetnina, Museum of Fine Arts in Split, Croatia. Catalogue Oscilacije/Oscillations, published by Galerija Umjetnina, Museum of Fine Arts in Split, Croatia ISBN 978-953-8167-31-7
Link to web site
https://www.galum.hr/en/exhibitions/exibition/1665/
http://www.ninamanga.com/balancing-act
https://radar.lboro.ac.uk/artists/nina-mangalanayagam/
Date
2019Creator
Mangalanayagam, Nina
Keywords
Video installation
Hybridity
Postcolonial
Race
Decolonial
Heritage
Publication type
artistic work
Language
eng