Real and Imagined Spaces

For a representation of space, Jessica Gannaway’s pieces are small, an aspect that mirrors our own shrinking world and world views. Exhibited gallery one, fortyfive downstairs, ‘Real and Imagined Spaces’ is a retrospective on our relationship with space, from the macro to the micro. A total of twenty-one textile prints flank a draping centerpiece, the detail of the work inviting viewers across creaking floorboards. Behind contemporary frames (All glass and chrome) lies an earthy textile onto which Gannaway relays an interpretation of space -white diagrams, like a blueprint for what could exist. Illustrations of trees, mountain ranges, furniture and human silhouettes foreground the topography of organic textiles. The tonal surface of the works a representation of the earth from which we build houses, railways and cities. Despite this, the illustrations are not architectural, and the works ultimately explore how we occupy space, not how we alter it. The relatability of the subjects lies within their shared struggle with and acceptance of their environment. In ‘Trying’ two identical caricatures are separated by a wall, in ‘Companioning’ another couple venture into a forested landscape their backs to us and in “Intermediary’ a woman holds together (or apart) two landmasses. These scribbled shapes and silhouettes are a surface onto which we project ourselves, for each situation is inherently relatable. The wall could be the wall of a schoolyard, prison or border, the forested landscape, the promising or threatening new beginning and the landmasses, a place we must leave and the place we must venture. It’s easy to imagine we are looking through the eyes of some unseen spectator, giving the scenes an uncanny intimacy. This perspective portrays not the physical dimensions nor the impressions of an environment but rather the political, emotional and sentimental attachments to it. It is important now more than ever to pay attention to the arbitrary restrictions we place on environments. In a time where we can overcome our environmental limitations, we must look to the emotional, social and psychological if we wish to know why we don’t. “Every geography in which we live has some degree of injustice embedded in it” – Edward Soja, the spatial theorist from whom the exhibitions title is borrowed. Jessica Gannaway’s pieces are an example of how we might, if not how we should, look at space. Words by John Thompson