Collateral, Venice
Sean Edwards
Undo Things Done
Wales in VeniceUndo Things Done, a poetic inquiry into place, politics and class, intertwined with personal histories, is Sean Edwards' first major presentation at an international biennale. Known for his sculptural approach to the everyday, Edwards often begins with seemingly unrelated elements linked by autobiographical and cultural connections. These range from the 1970s shopping centre near the housing estate where he grew up to Springsteen’s album Nebraska, a Welsh quilting group, snooker, tabloid newspapers, and various found materials. Through investigative processes including time spent in local archives, museums and libraries, he gathers together images, stories, quotes, and clips. It is in the teasing out of these things in the studio, in isolating, abstracting, and bringing them together, that their political and formal resonance comes into play. Edwards’ new body of work includes sculpture, film, prints, Welsh quilts and a live daily radio broadcast, and takes its starting point from the artist’s experience of growing up on a council estate in Cardiff in the 1980s. Included in the show is Edwards’ new time-based commission, a live play for radio entitled 'Refrain' produced in partnership with National Theatre Wales, which leaves a haunting residue in the building. The live broadcast takes place once a day at 14:00 for the entire run of Biennale Arte 2019. The script performed by the artist’s mother and transmitted to Venice from her home in Cardiff, draws on both personal experience and found materials. Her voice, elderly, accented by her Northern Irish background and not accustomed to making a public address, will at times hesitate and repeat. It becomes a part of the work, shifting the atmosphere in the rooms with its presence and absence. Sean Edwards’ project is curated by Marie-Anne McQuay. Wales in Venice 2019 is commissioned by Arts Council Wales. Born in Cardiff in 1980, Sean Edwards graduated from Cardiff School of Art & Design before studying an MA in sculpture at Slade School of Fine Art. The artist returned to Wales in 2005 where he has since contributed to the development of the Welsh artistic landscape through his own artistic practice and supporting the development of emerging artists via artist-led space g39 and now as lecturer in Fine Art at Cardiff School of Art and Design, Cardiff Metropolitan University. Edwards has exhibited widely, nationally and internationally including Spike Island, Bristol; Chapter, Cardiff and Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany. He has developed permanent public artwork with Studio Response, and Future City and in 2014 was awarded the Gold Medal in Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod and is a former recipient of Arts Council of Wales’s Creative Wales Awards. He is represented by Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin.