Journal

Review of Inaugural Pursuit - The Student

WRITTEN BY LENE KORSEBERG    TUESDAY, 27 MARCH 2012 00:00   Talent worth pursuingCulture

The Old Ambulance Depot
Run Ended
4/5

Lene Korseberg considers the offerings at Inaugural Pursuit the start of something special.

Inaugural Pursuit is an exhibition consisting of 26 pieces, comprising work from a number of different disciplines including painting, sculpture, photography, video and performance. Run by students from Edinburgh College of Art and set in the fantastically cool Old Ambulance Depot, the exhibition aims to present “a vigorous, agile and thorough investigation of each artist’s chosen subject.”

As the title suggests, Inaugural Pursuit supposedly represents something of a first and indeed, for many of the artists contributing, this will be their first public exhibition. It is therefore pleasing to see that many of them cross that threshold in such an impressive manner.

However, a few deserve some extra focus. First of all, a note should be made about “Your Children Won’t Save You” by Dennis J. Reinmüller. Living up to its title, the sculpture portrays a disturbing child-sized figure in a Spiderman outfit, de-masked and fallen. Further, the x-ray inspired “6mm” by Luisa Risch deserves praise for the way it plays with the balance between light and image. Lastly, I would like to mention “The Last of my Seed” by Sam Phillips. The sculpture resembles a large seed growing high up into the ceiling, leaving the viewer with a feeling of being just as small and insignificant as the seed itself.

The exhibition also includes a number of videos and again some of the pieces stood out more than others. In particular, “Circle” by Emily Rimmer (video) and Dylan Martin Ross (sound) caught my attention. The video takes place on a moving train and the passing scenery is shown through a permanent circle in the middle of the image. This creates a sense of stability in an otherwise unfocused landscape.

In terms of being an exhibition aimed to show off new talents, overall the show did not disappoint. Despite that some of the pieces did not succeed in moving the viewer as much as they might have intended to, the work that did managed to leave us deeply impressed. It will be very interesting to see what these young artists might come up with in the future.

available at http://www.studentnewspaper.org/culture/1808-talent-worth-pursuing