West, London
Prem Sahib
Descent
Southard ReidDescent is an exhibition in three parts, each lasting three weeks, that began in November 2019. I. People Come & Go (Nov 13 - 30) II. Cul-de-sac (Dec 5 - 21) III. Man Dog (Feb 15 - Mar 7) The structure of the exhibition has presented an overarching narrative split across time and space, creating contextual shifts and associations between each constituent part. It has included sculpture, performance, installation, video and archival material. People Come & Go was an immersive installation based on an interior section of a men-only cruise club, a matrix designed for gay men. Sahib produced a 1:1 replica of a tunnel within the club at times which was inhabited by a figure that appeared to be unconscious. It re-staged a parallel view outside of the space itself in the dissociative context of a gallery as a means of exploring ideas around exclusion, shame and death. The second part, Cul-de-Sac, extended Sahib’s framing of specific architectural structures to that of the residential street, with its organisation of houses, communities and lives. A drone-shot video, moving up and down, then high above the street Sahib grew up in Southall, a suburb of West London, was shown with a collection of archival material belonging to his uncle who worked in community outreach with South Asian youth from the 1970s to '90s, offering an expansion on the history of the area through an individual’s activism. Man Dog is an object response to the earlier exhibitions embodying ideas raised throughout the show, such as inclusion and exclusion within spaces and the role of social structures in shaping identities. Moving from the club to the residential street and then an interior space, Sahib explores the communal and domestic through new sculpture, installation and audio work that contrast feelings of alienation, comfort and entrapment. Three still-life arrangements placed on newspaper line the gallery floor, reminiscent of pet beds or baskets where belongings are stored. Beneficiary, a work comprised of eight identical legs with feet in uniform white trainers, is partially visible behind a wall, pointing to a tribal alliance as well as a homogenous social body. A black mirror sculpture entitled Man Dog, made from obsidian and converted in to a speaker, intermittently plays material recorded by Sahib of offensive and racist hate-speech they experienced in an online chat room. Descent, a blood-red resin-painted panel harks to the title of the exhibition and its connection to lineage, passage through time and perspectives.