Arnolfini

Saskia Holmkvist
Role Control
Sat 12 Apr - Sun 15 Jun, 10am - 6pm (Except Mondays)

What’s the appeal in watching someone faking it?

Saskia Holmkvist's exhibition presents a major new video installation exploring notions of credibility, social strategy, and how we all engage in role-play. In Saskia Holmkvist’s best-known work Interview with Saskia Holmkvist (2005), the artist hired a media relations expert to train her to deliver a short statement about the themes of authenticity in her practice. The video documents Holmkvist rehearsing this statement with apparent sincerity and authority, but in doing so, a neat self-referential moment occurs as the work undermines and questions the authenticity of the situation.

This work in particular connects two of Holmkvist’s main interests which are the focus of this exhibition; the common languages of information such as factual documentary, and PR and marketing strategies, she elucidates on how these can be manipulated as well as actually being a source of manipulation.

The exhibition presents her newly commissioned film productions Role Control and In Character. The works develop on Holmkvist’s research into self-presentation and role-play, taking as their departure point the psychology of meetings, job interviews and interrogations. They emphasize the preparations for such situations, looking at the strategies employed for coaxing, mediating, cross-examining and disclosing information.

Alongside these new commissions, the exhibition will present a selection of existing works, including System (2001) which first brought her to national prominence in her native Sweden. This will be the first solo exhibition of work by Saskia Holmkvist in the UK.

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Centre Space

Saturday 17th May, and Sunday 18th May 10am – 5pm
Monday 19th May – Wednesday 21st May 10am – 6pm

Settlement: A Drawing Out From Place
Centrespace Gallery - Bristol

More an installation than a drawing, experiment than exhibition, emergent artist Emma Moxey invites you to interpret and inhabit an evolving translated place, where drawings respond, correspond and cross dimensions.

Goldish
24th May - 5th June
10am - 6pm

By taking the nasty, grubby, grotty bits of life that are consciously,hidden in drawers, shoved under beds and stuffed behind sofas we aim tochallenge 'status', and in turn create surprising image/verbalcombinations and ambiguous amusing artifacts.

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Spike Island

The Open
Friday 2 May - Saturday 10 May

Studios Exhibitions Workshops Talks Events Live Music

Launch Friday 2 May 6- 9pm
After Party 9-11pm
Saturday 3 - Monday 5 May 11am-6pm

The Open at Spike Island is an annual event which takes place on the first May Bank Holiday weekend.

Whilst the Galleries are open all year round, The Open is the only time during the year when visitors are able to explore every corner of this vast building at their own pace. You are invited to meet the artists and designers working here, see their work and attend the programme of exhibitions, events & activities that will take place over the long bank holiday weekend.

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Watershed

Film: Caramel

BBFC Certificate
Cert: PG
Director: Nadine Labaki 2007 France/Lebanon 96 mins Subtitled
Cast: Nadine Labaki, Yasmine Elmasri

screenings from:
Fri 16 May - Thu 05 Jun

Labaki’s first feature unpicks the complicated love lives of five women who frequent their neighbourhood beauty salon in Beirut. Between haircuts and sugar waxing, their intimate and liberated conversations revolve around men, sex and motherhood, drawing together a beguiling tapestry of life in a modern metropolis in which Christian and Muslim, young and old, religious and secular all live and work side by side. Cast mostly with unprofessional actors, this warm, character-driven tale heralds a new kind of Lebanese cinema celebrating the witty, affectionate and life-affirming in a region suffering from political and religious strife.

Screenings will be preceded by Barber, a Bristol Stories short film.

The following screenings of Caramel will feature Audio Description:

Fri 16 – Sat 17 May: 1500hrs, 1800hrs, 2020hrs. Sun 18 May: 1100hrs, 1800hrs, 2020hrs. Mon 19 May: 1100hrs, 1500hrs, 1800hrs, 2020hrs. Tue 20 May: 1500hrs, 2020hrs. Wed 21 – Sat 24 May: 1500hrs, 1800hrs, 2020hrs. Sun 25 May: 1100hrs, 1500hrs, 1800hrs, 2020hrs. Mon 26 May: 1500hrs, 1800hrs, 2020hrs. Tue 27 May: 2050hrs. Wed 28 May: 1500hrs, 1800hrs, 2020hrs. Thu 29 May: 1500hrs, 2050hrs.