22 September–22 October 2011
Picture This’ Atelier
Corner of Mardyke Ferry Road and Sydney Row
Spike Island
Bristol, BS1 6UU
United Kingdom
www.picture-this.org.uk
In 2001, in an unnamed Asian country, a man known as F.R., was given 700 USD by his father and told to make something of himself. F. R. founded a multi-million dollar clandestine company that secretly exports fetish wear to the West. The dozens of mostly female workers believe themselves to be sewing body bags for the US military, jackets for psychiatric patients and props for circus animals.
Avalon combines documentary footage from the factory with staged scenes, shot on a purpose built film set at Picture This, speculating on the end users of the products. The staged scenes, based upon extensive research and interviews with real life persons, present an actor playing a client of a dungeon, undergoing a role-play session purporting to provide intense psychological experiences.
Avalon takes the story of F.R. as the point of departure for a complex meditation on the links between affect, labour and commodity under contemporary global conditions. Juxtaposing the world of the stage with the world of the factory, and performativity with production, the film probes the different but interlocking forms that work takes today, from the production of goods to the production of subjectivity.
Avalon is Maryam Jafri’s first UK solo show. Avalon is commissioned by Picture This with support from The Danish Arts Council. Picture This develop artists’ film and video through commissions and exhibitions. Our resources are used by artists and arts organisations, and our events, exhibitions and publications contextualise projects within current developments in contemporary art.
