Hardly believable, but it is exactly a year since The Bigger Picture launched its first series of commissions in 2005. The newly created works were made specifically for the Big Screen, with each artist taking a different approach to creating moving image work for this unique exhibition space in Exchange Square, Manchester.
The five commissioned artists were Hilary Jack, Paul Melia, Adele Prince, The Light Surgeons and Louise K. Wilson.
Hilary Jack’s’ Turquoise Bag in a Tree unpeels generations of consumerism to reveal the rituals and poetry of our everyday lives, the work reflects on varying perceptions of urban detritus. Manchester by C by Paul Melia is an imaginative reconstruction of Manchester, documenting a systematic walk through the city using only those streets beginning with the letter C.
Adele Prince’s Natural Habitat is a series of animated portraits of Exchange Square inhabitants. In this piece Prince documents how different social groups interact with themselves and each other. In Passing, by The Light Surgeons, shot around the location of the screen, explores the psycho-geography of the city through the experiences of a local woman who is partially blind. The film approaches documentary film making from a unique angle, bringing together live action and animation, whilst also making comment on the issues of disability and our judgement of other people in the city space.
Louise K. Wilson’s film highlights that her interest in the North West Film Archive spans the collection itself, the physical process of film preservation, and the social process of collaboration. During a period of intense immersion Wilson sought out the spectacle and performance elements within the archive and brought these to her final work for The Bigger Picture.