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Playland: Re-imagining Communities

Jivko Darakchiev and Nicholette Goff with residents of Folkestone

The Brewery Tap, 53 Tontine Street
9 - 25 September 2016
Thursday-Saturday 12.00-17.00
Sunday 13.00-17.00

 

A film commission, photography and installation in response to landscape, heritage & communities of South East England & Northern France

As economies change, so do communities. Landscapes and townscapes once appropriated for manufacture are reclaimed in decline by nature or bulldozers before being shaped again to meet new commercial and leisure goals.

Playland: Re-imagining Communities brings together the narratives of a film commission and the memorabilia of everyday life as international artist Jivko Darakchiev and Folkestone based artist Nicholette Goff engage with local communities to explore senses of place and identity through time.

Darakchiev’s film takes landscape as a defining feature of collective memory and modern existence. It examines life in the former mining communities of Northern France and the coastal zones of South East England, physically separated for millennia by the English Channel-La Manche. It compares people’s interaction on either side of this working, trading waterway, their commonalities and differences.

This time-based overview is juxtaposed with vignettes of possessions, tokens and markers of the lives of communities of the harbour district of Folkestone in The Brewery Tap, a gallery which was once a vibrant pub at the heart of this longstanding but ever-changing community. Local people have come together to share objects, photographs, stories and memorabilia that reflect how the changing nature of Folkestone has influenced communities and how, in turn, those communities have contributed to forging new identities for the town.

Jivko Darakchiev is an artist and film-maker who was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. He lived in the United States for 16 years and now lives and works in Paris. Darakchiev’s films reflect his interest in local and isolated communities that he has encountered on his travels. His work encourages people to celebrate their lives at work and play and the vital contributions that individuals and groups make to creating neighbourhoods and a sense of place in rapidly changing times.
www.jivko.org

Nicholette Goff is a fine artist and has an MA in Art Criticism and Theory. Much of her practice is based in the natural environment, exploring issues of change and loss in nature, engaging with the complex questions posed by people who manage the landscape. Goff has a strong sense of community and has always sought opportunities to actively engage people in dialogue around social issues reflected in, and posed by, contemporary art.
www.nicholettegoff.co.uk

Playland : Re-imagining Communities is curated by Christine Gist and Jim Shea

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