Memory Awake - Part I

Films by:
Nelson Bourrec Carter
Rebecca Davies
Allan Hughes

The Fog Thicker 
2010 6mins20sec
Nelson Bourrec Carter
Three women set out on a quest to find a long lost house. And as they drive, carried by the voice of an overpowering preacher, they eventually get lost in a rather pleasant fog. The car becomes a place of reflection, the road trip a pretext for introspection, whereas the somehow unreachable outside nourishes the nostalgia of unknown times. They are like ghosts driving through the world of the living.

Through the use of photography and video, Bourrec Carter questions the link between personal and collective memory, and its role in making the self. Between reality and the fantasized landscape, the characters gently glide from seductive nostalgias to heavy and mute atmospheres.

French-American, born 1988
Lives and work in Paris
Graduated from the Nantes Superior School of Fine Arts 2010
http://www.nelsonbourreccarter.com/

Eric 
2010 13mins40sec
Rebecca Davies
Eric documents a funeral. It begins in Skegness, where Eric passes away and ends in Coventry, where he is cremated. The video observes the context of a funeral for a loved one; the story travelling from Eric's last year in a care home, to picking his coffin in the funeral parlour, and the reception at a working men's club.

Rebecca Davies is a video maker and illustrator. Her work is about people and places. She studies places that are of interest to her, that have a 'chequered' past, and as a result are undergoing some form of regeneration. In an attempt to preserve these characterful locations, Rebecca documents them. This takes the form of sound recording, illustration and video work. Past and ongoing projects include Dungeness, The Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre and Coney Island.

Graduated from the Royal College of Art where she specialised in moving image and sound. 
In 2010 she won the Sheila Robinson Prize for Drawing and was nominated for the Helen Hamlyn Design Award. 
Her video Eric has been screened at the BFI and was shortlisted for the Salon Video Prize in 2011.

Point Of Audition 
2009 13mins42sec
Allan Hughes 
Point Of Audition uses transcriptions of Jane Fonda’s broadcasts on Radio Hanoi from the summer of 1972. Fonda lent her support to the anti-war movement by speaking out against the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, and the policies of President Nixon’s administration. The broadcasts were directed primarily towards U.S. soldiers based in Vietnam. They were subsequently investigated by the U.S. Congress House of Representatives for their effect in undermining confidence amongst soldiers on active duty. 
Point Of Audition presents a synchronised vocal performance of extracts from the Radio Hanoi transcripts, set in a reconstruction of a scene from the film Klute, in which Fonda played the central role.

In making his films, Alan Hughes deconstructs existing material and re-presents and re-fashions it. This process, which is used by many artists, is often referred to as remediation. Hughes has touched on many subjects which have included the decommissioned British Army listening post at Black Mountain in Belfast, and the erased portions of Richard Nixon's Watergate Tapes.

In 2011 his work was included in Rencontres Internationales at the Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt in Berlin, Pompidou Centre in Paris & the Filmoteca Espanol in Madrid, SCOPE Art in New York and Askeaton Contemporary Arts Welcome To The Neighborhood. 
In 2010 he was awarded the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Major artist award and in 2009 he was the recipient of a six-month Artist’s Residency Programme at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally, with work shown in the Mediations Biennale in Poznan Poland, UNOACTU in Dresden, La Sala Naranja in Valencia, the Ormeau Baths Gallery Belfast, and the Beursschouwburg in Brussels, amongst others.

Allan Hughes is based in Belfast at Orchid Studios.
PhD, University of Ulster, Belfast (supervised by Profs. Willie Doherty & Kerstin Mey) 2006-2010
MA in Fine Art University of Ulster, Belfast 2003-05
BA Hons in Fine Art University of Ulster, Belfast 1996-99
http://www.allanhughes.com/

Dates: 3–15 November 2011